Not bad.  It only took me 70 days to respond! I think that deserves its own special reward.

I tried to summarized your main points in your posts as follows - I tried to do them justice, but feel free to correct, etchttp://www.theeroticreview.com/discussion_boards/viewmsg.asp?MessageID=24405&boardID=39&page=)

1. I reject monotheism. It makes no sense that there’s this big, separate God out there.

2. The universe has fooled us many times and will continue to do so – but that doesn’t mean there is a God conveniently filling in the gaps.

3. I disbelieve in spiritual processes, like ghosts.  But conscious beings do create the world they perceive they live in. “Spiritual” really is describing a psychological event, the changing of the perceiver.  But it does not mean it connects us to a larger reality that exists, in fact, outside of and independent of us (e.g., we don’t transcend into other realms outside of us).

4. And just because seemingly smart people allege a God doesn’t make it so.  You can’t rely on authority.  The proof is in the pudding.

If I have captured your points accurately, I agree with them all.

So, do we disagree, and if so, where?  Well, I don't know.  But here's what I have learned in my life that I am comfortable with:

This process of "creating the world one perceives he or she lives in" is a big deal.  What do we focus on?  What do we assume is true and not only fail to examine, but are frankly unable to yet examine because it is so imbedded in our current self image?  The ongoing maturation and surfacing of our assumptions is the essence of adult development.  Who are we once we have surfaced all the mental constructs?  

I am going to skip to the experience of meditation. At some point, one learns to undo thinking and willing.  All one’s self image and even one’s striving is quieted.  The best way I can describe identity at this point is Now.  And several complementary things are happening.  What the Hindu’s call the “heart chakra” opens and it feels like deep, rich love.  At least that’s what it feels like to me.  A fair question is, “so what?” I mean, I also like to masturbate, and that isn’t going to get the crops harvested.  

But something powerful has happened in this process: I have discovered rather than controlled or predetermined.  “I” didn’t do it.  “I” aligned with something more fundamental in my psyche than what I usually call “me.” "I" actually have feelings of adoration and worship towards this aspect of my life.  And to continue to grow this capacity, getting really good at meditating isn’t enough.  It’s not just about how many hours one can control his mind. I have to live according to my own, privately discovered, personally validated sense of what I know to be right, important, beautiful, etc, etc.  I have also to come to grips with the relative powerlessness of my own will – not just its powerlessness, but the emptiness that accompanies my love of its pursuit to be king on the hill.  What’s it like to fully live according to one’s best sense of himself, in each moment? Beats me, but that where I am pointing.  

And this begins the journey into “faith.” Faith in what? Don’t know. Not in any proper noun.  Not in any concept or construct. Faith in my own worthiness of feeling loved, perhaps, not because of how great I am, but because that reality is there to be accepted.  Faith in all that I can’t control, perhaps – not that a car won’t hit my beloved children tonight and kill them, but that the depth of who I am is always healing and whole.  That consciousness is a part of reality itself, knowable, attractive and satisfying and that when I am in the identity of Now, the sense of isolation from others dissolves into a connection of love, gratitude, compassion, generosity.  I no longer need to take, but can give.  At long fucking last.  

So, I end up thinking like this: Shakespeare didn’t really write all those plays.  Someone else did and they called him Shakespeare.  All those things you don’t believe about “God” I don’t either.  But I try to live as if my most incredible vision of what “God” is, is true.  And in doing so, I am satisfied in all the ways I always longed to be. That’s the subjective reality I am fostering.  

Wow, that’s all really personal.  But you asked, and that’s how I see things.  




-- Modified on 11/23/2005 9:02:15 PM

how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty!
in form and moving how express and admirable!
in action how like an angel'in apprehension,
how like a god! the beauty of the world!
the paragon of animals

http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/emb6/mansonfamily1.jpg

Hamlet  (Act II, Scene II).

And thus I clothe my naked villany

....Ah, there's the rub!

And if that doesn't pick up the dust, use Pledge.

creeps in this petty pace; from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death; out out brief candle, life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!