Just after discussing a Nomad altar, we referred to a Christian altar in another timeline. The Nomad example is a family altar so does that mean an altar used by the family or devoted to the family? Probably the former since the Captain's cabin also has a family portrait and there is no mention of ancestor worship among the Nomads. I suggest that Cosmos cannot be prayed to but can be contemplated. Zazen, just sitting meditation, is contemplation of the Cosmos as it manifests here and now. The Cosmos is not a thing but everything, including all life and consciousness. We are both a part of It and its point of self-consciousness. Burning incense symbolizes the all-pervading. We can practice the Cosmic religion now.
16 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I don't believe many, if any, will practice something so vague, wispy, and bloodless as this Cosmic religion.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well, that's up to other people. I think that Cosmos is concrete reality.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The cosmos is a reality but it is not the Ultimate.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
By "Cosmos," I mean All, including ultimate reality.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I disagree with that terminology because it puts the merely created on the same level as the Creator. It's a re-personalizing of nature.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes but I don't accept this distinction between Creator and created as I have argued before.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I do believe in that distinction.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Yes but we are now merely stating beliefs, not reasons for them. I can restate that I think that the creator before the creation would be a self without other. You can restate that the Trinity answers this question and I can restate my reasons for thinking that it doesn't. Can we move on from this position?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
We have to, because we have reached another impasse. Neither of us agrees the other is right.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I still ask this question. If I recognize and converse with another person, I see him as visible and tangible and spatially distinct from me. Thus, other than me. Even if we embrace, his body is beside mine and touching mine but not occupying the same space. Now imagine that neither of us has a body or a physical environment and that there is no space between us. How then are we other? Or, indeed, existent?
I think that the One knows Itself by appearing to Itself as many subjects and objects in space and time.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
God is a spirit, and has no need of a body. I also affirm that God is omnipotent and can make Himself known to any human being by whatever means He wishes. I recently cited how God "appeared" to Elijah thru a gentle whistling. That seems to be what you were saying in your last sentence.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I grant that disembodied consciousness is logically possible (no more than that) but not that a self can exist without an other or that the Trinity answers this latter issue.
Paul.
I mean that the one reality is conscious of itself through spatiotemporal organisms. There cannot be consciousness before subject-object duality.
Kaor, Paul!
Then we have to disagree. Because I believe God does exist and that the Trinity answers your objection.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But how does the Trinity answer the objection that two selves who are not spatially distinct are not other than each other?
And merely stating that God exists is not sufficient to persuade anyone of the truth of that proposition.
Paul.
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