The Essence of Religion

Whoever lives their life rightly experiences sorrow not as a problem, but as joy.
That's so hard to live by. Problems in their current state are named "problems" because that is what they are, or else they would be named "joyfulness". I don't necessarily enjoy having problems, but I do enjoy having joy. I guess by turning my problems into joy, then I can make my own joy. But then again. They just wouldn't be problems anymore. Wittgenstein seems to be able to grasp this concept better than I can.
It just seems like if I get in a car accident, I'm going to say "This sucks" as opposed to saying "Oh, What joy!" and even after the fact, looking back... I think I still would have preferred to have not gotten into the car accident at all, as opposed to having to deal with the PROBLEM of it all.
It would be nice to achieve a state of oblivion though. To where there are no worries or concerns, except for to satisfy the hunger of your belly. But then again, what kind of life is that? With no spontaneity. I might die.

Bakhya Ibn Pakuda

This reading made me think about our discussion in class today. About God existing despite the evil and sorrow in the world. How can this be? There is a sentence here that says that "if he afflicts her, she suffers patiently, and her love for him only grows." It's something I don't really understand. If I were afflicted, I doubt if I would love the person who harmed me even more. Unless of course it was for my good. Like- my tooth was getting work on it, because it had a cavity. But even then, I rarely fall in love with my dentist.
There was a point made in class today about how we can't really appreciate the good without the evil being present. And then it was rebutted that we just wouldn't know any different, but would instead feel the good all the time. But what about being able to appreciate the good without the evil anyways? For example, if we are outside in our California heat, sometimes it is unbearable. And then a wind blows. We know that it is good. And we appreciate it. Or a baby's cry isn't evil, but just a way of saying "Feed Me" or "Love Me" or "Hold Me", but despite it NOT being evil, we are made to appreciate when the baby laughs.

What is Unworthy of Our Desire?

What I liked about Hinduism was how it embraces man as he is. If you seek material things...go ahead and get them, if you want pleasure, find a way to please yourself, whatever you desire and whatever makes you happy, you should go after. Granted the catch is that eventually you will find that what makes you happy isn't material things, or sex, or anything else of the world, but instead it is doing good works and the relationships you have with people. When Hugh talks about how a man descends from the dignity of his natural condition to what is unworthy of his desire when he desires visible things, I can't necessarily agree with him.
Does he believe that we are born pure and then we come into sin? Or does he believe that we are born sinners, and must deny ourselves? Or neither of these?
But it can't really be all that healthy to continuously feel like we are degraded because we desire things that we see here on Earth. Isn't that only natural? Should I feel like a horrid person because I want a new laptop, or the cute dress I saw at the store the other day, or because I want a nice house one day and an attractive husband...?
All of those are transitory and perishable.

Perhaps All Dragons Are Princesses

When I began reading the excerpt by Rilke, at first I thought that it was pretty pointless when she wrote of "The Experience" of a boy becoming one with the nature surrounding him. I still don't understand the point of it, and I don't think that that is possible. Or that if it is, then it can only exist for a very short period of time, so why dwell on it? If it can't be something to strive for. You just fall into it, sporadically.

I can relate a little better to some of her other thoughts about how loving another human being is the most difficult task entrusted to us, or when she teaches that we should "have patience with everything unresolved in our hearts and try to love the questions themselves"

I really enjoyed when she wrote about how we view life. She says that if our world has terrors, or dangers, or fears, it isn't against US, but instead they are our own self made terrors, and our own dangers and our own fears. In reality, we make our world. However we choose to perceive things and react to things is how we define ourselves.

All the World Was Mine

Thomas Traherne ends this excerpt by riveting back to a time when he was a child. He brings us into his perspective on how he viewed the world the first time, and could not see fault. How can you see fault, when there is nothing to compare with? The world was all his, and he viewed everything as spotless, pure, and glorious. He didn't know of sins, complaints, laws, vices, guilt, tears, or quarrels; instead, all he saw was joyful and precious. How sweet it must be to see something for the first time, untainted, unblemished, and seemingly pure to the beholder. Is this how God views us?
Perhaps when he views us, he sees us as we are: perfect. He made us this way, in our proper place, and our specific image, and we work best in this image of ourselves. I wonder if we will every learn to desire objects, and people so perfectly, that we can't desire them any other way.
I'd like to believe that this is what marriage will look like.
But yet again, it seems to be unrealistic.

Guilty of Polytheism

Abu Sa'id Ibn AbiL-Khayr.
What a mouthful.
This guy most likely believes in predestination. Which is cool, if that's what you want to believe.
He seems to think that everything is through God. Whether it be actions, thoughts, discoveries, realizations...
Basically, to sum it up, we are helpless. And when we can behold our helplessness is when we will have our desires fall away from us, and we will be free and calm. This is when we will desire what God desires.
I don't know if I buy all of this. I doubt that man will ever desire only what God desires. Isn't there the eternal struggle between the flesh and the spirit? Characteristically, as humans, we seem to be programmed towards our own desires. And though we say that we desire what God desires, I don't know if there is ever complete truth in this. And how can we ever know every one of God's desires?

I liked how he told us that if we wished to draw near to God, then we must seek him in the hearts of men. Hopefully each person contains some sort of holiness within their hearts.

Novalis

There is not much to work with here, because it is such a short reading, but here are my thoughts nonetheless...
When Novalis states how "philosophy is really homesickness", I can wrap my mind around this concept. Philosophy is defined as 1) a belief accepted as authoritative, or 2) the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics, or 3) any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation. Any of these definitions suffice in helping to understand why you could replace the definition with homesickness. All that philosophy is looking for is a comfort area, what you can hold to, something that is real and true to you...something similar to home. We desire an innate feeling of goodness, along with familiarity to be able to cope with life. Philosophy is just how you find this for yourself. And then it is labeled.
When he says that "when we understand how to love one thing-then we also understand how best to love everything", I don't know if I particularly agree. When we are small, we understand how to love mom, but we do not understand how to best love everything else. In fact, the world is pretty damn scary. Or let's take the example of having a "first love". When I had my first love, I understood how to love that person, and granted, it did teach me a lot about love, and the different concepts and ideals included in that one word, but I don't think that I understood then how best to love everything....rather, I understood more that everything thrived off of this amazing thing called love.

Shadow of Desire

William Blake has amazing insight. There is so much to digest in his excerpt.
He negates all preconceived notions of Good and Bad, God and Satan. Instead we are enlightened with this new knowledge of how maybe these opposing forces are really one, and we have viewed everything backwards and upside-down all of our lives.
We are told that the Soul and Body are not separate, but instead are one, intertwined. And that Energy (which is correlated with Satan) is the only life and is from the Body, and that Reason (which is correlated with God) is the outward circumference of Energy.
We are told that we should not restrain our desires, and he writes some of the Proverbs that he collected from Hell...
Some of which I really enjoyed:
Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
Shame is Pride's cloke.

It seems that we fall back on the recurring theme of looking outside your box. If we do so, then we will see that everything is infinite.
Having the opposing forces of good and evil be called one and the same is a little difficult to grasp, but if we believe that evil exists, it is only because we have the good to compare it to. Kind of like when Blake turned the Heaven/Hell existance around on us, and put it in Satan's perspective. Where Satan said that God was the one that "fell" out of their Paradise, and that God then created from what was around him a place that he labeled "Heaven".

The Philosophy of Love

This excerpt is written by a Mantinean woman named Diotima to Socrates. She attempts to reveal true beauty while showing him how to find it himself.
I don't necessarily know if love and beauty are synonymous words. I believe that we can love beauty, but can beauty make love? Love can make beauty. Where there is love there is beauty, without a doubt. But where there is beauty, there is not always love. Either way, Plato writes that Diotima says that "the quest for universal beauty must find a man ever mounting the heavenly ladder, starting from the individual beauties, from bodily beauty to the beauty of institutions, from institutions to learning, and from learning in general to the special lore that pertains to nothing but the beautiful itself."
I wonder what it would be like to gaze on beauty's very self, as she puts it, unsullied, unalloyed, and freed from the mortal taint that haunts the frailer loveliness of flesh and blood. We are only accustomed to the humanly love that we have experienced here on Earth, is this all we know, and can we know more?
The next part of this reading is a conversation between Socrates and Phaedrus, where Socrates lift up a charming prayer, asking to be granted beauty from within and requesting that whatever outward things that he have may be in harmony with the spirit inside of him.
It has been said that Socrates was quite hideous. If only his inside was reflected on the outside, then perhaps this prayer would ring true, and his physical appearance would cease it's ugliness.

Watching God With God's Eyes

The Hermetic Writings resemble some of the past readings that we have done. I like this style of thought, where God is here, God is there, God is everywhere. God made all things so that through all things we can see him. Through all emotions, of love, hate, jealousy, joy, sorrow, gladness, through all objects, pencil, shirt, hairspray, plate, we see God. I think that everyone has the ability to view God-what is different is the perception in which they choose to view Him. Whether it is a Him at all. We each choose to see God in our own way, whether it be a nonGod, whether it be an almighty God, or even if it is our very own soul that we bow down to...something is acknowledged. This passage says that we should realize that othing is impossible, and recognize that we are immortaland can embrae all things in your mind. We are told that we can perceive God everywhere, in all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes.
So if this is to be held true, why do people spend (or waste) their entire lives searching for God, when in reality, He is everywhere and everything?

The Ocean Diver Doesn't Need Snowshoes

Jason was right. I’m addicted to Rumi.
Here’s a side note…When I was studying abroad in Argentina last semester, I frequented a boliche (discoteca/nightclub) called Rumi. Who knows- maybe the Argentine’s knew a little something-something about Islamic Sufiism poets.
Anyways, this guy has some neat shit to say.
I’ll begin with his conversation with an embryo. Yes, you read that right. An embryo! ?
But it makes perfect sense- how are we to describe the world outside an embryo to it, when it can’t even fathom it, since all it knows is what it has experienced? It is content to stay cooped up in the dark with its eyes closed.
Is that how I am?
Do I know no more than what is available for me to experience, so I am content with it, not knowing that there is more than “it” out there?
Another scenario that Rumi gives to us is with a Friend who knocks on a door, and claims that “It’s me” and is refused entrance because he is raw meat. He then returns much later cooked, and is gained entrance in the house. He claims that “It’s you”, and the person within welcomes their self. What does this mean? Maybe that once we become one with God then we may enter Him- I’m not too sure.
During another part of this passage, where God is rebuking Moses for reprimanding a worshiper on the way that he praised God, we are told that God looks inside at the humility. Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another; it’s not god that’s glorified in acts of worship, it’s the worshiper. All that God is seeking is a burning. BURNING (as Rumi emphasizes). He wants lovers who burn.
And there was one more part that was very inspirational to me. This was about a loaf of bread. To men see a loaf of bread. One has not eaten for ten days, and the other is quite full. The full man sees the shape of the loaf, whereas the other man sees inside of it to the taste.
I want to see the taste.

The Perception of Beauty is a Delight in Itself

What Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali describes in his excerpt is delightful. He claims that all joy is loved, and that where beauty is perceived it is natural to love it. And if God is beauty, he must be loved by those to whom his beauty and majesty are revealed. Our soul can attain eternal life and become Godlike through knowledge and love.
I really like the concepts of perseverance, strength, vulnerability, having aspirations, hope, enjoying every moment of life, but I think passion and love are behind each of those. One day perhaps I’ll be able to think up some magnificent tattoo that can incorporate an expression of this. Al-Ghazali defines passion for me: “Love, when it has grown strong and overwhelming, is called passion, which is love firmly established and limitless.” Some people view passion as something that doesn’t last- primarily in relationships. They are under the misconception that there is passion in the beginning of the relationship, yet it cannot continue. Al-Ghazali’s prior enlightened words directly contradict that and claims that passion has no limits and can be firmly established. I like to believe that this statement holds some truth in it.

Cloud of Unknowing

Kind of like how Taoist’s would believe, this passage declares that we are to do nothing. We are to remain unknowing. We are best if we have a cloud of unknowing between us and God, and a cloud of forgetting between us and all of the creatures made. “This is the lightest work of all…But it is hard, and a miracle if you can do it.”
I’d have to agree when he states that “you feel in your will a naked intent toward God.” This is obviously true, since almost every formed and unformed society has attempted to acknowledge or create a higher being to be in control of their lives. Whether there is only one higher being, or multiple, or if the higher being is within, or just resides in nature, humans continue to acknowledge it.
The author in this passage urges us to seek God through the darkness that we are in, only by dwelling on Him and nothing more. Thinking will not bring us to behold him, but only pure love has the ability to smite the thick cloud of unknowing. If we work hard at doing nothing for God’s love and have a desire to have God, then it is better than wrestling with a blind nothing.

I don’t think that this way of thinking has much impact on Christians of our time. People are so preoccupied with their appearance of being “spiritual” or “religious”, and don’t even realize that they have corrupted those words to leave a bitter taste in our mouths. Instead of being still, and knowing that He is God, they are so busy running around proving that they have good works to accompany their faith, and that they can save souls and clear a path to Heaven.
Jason made a statement in class today, about how Christians would not be believers if they found that the resurrection of Christ was false. Isn’t that a bit sad- that all of Jesus’ good teachings and moral standards aren’t enough for being to believe. Blind faith doesn’t seem to exist. In reality, if humans were to be told that there was no Heaven, and if in reality, there was no Heaven…would people have a religion still?

In Gazing Upon His Own Purity, He Will See the Archetype Within the Image

For some reason I can’t seem to get into the Christian teachings. I think it’s because I’m just so familiar with them. I want to learn more about other religions and their beliefs and dig deeper into understanding those. Because of this, I leaned more towards the excerpts that allowed me to generalize “A God” as opposed to God- The Father, of Christians.
Gregory of Nyssa seems to incorporate the idea of the God being within us. All we must do is seek within ourselves, and we will find what we are seeking. I like to believe this. I like to think that each of us has this innate goodness, call it what you want- God, virtue, purity, etc.-either way, what we ultimately seek and will find by searching ourselves is this.
He says that we cannot gain any knowledge of our nature by looking to others, or by searching the substances that have been created. But we can look into the artistic skill that has been impressed in the works that have been created.
So to understand this…I am to understand that I will not comprehend this God by looking to others, or by looking to the Bible or Mother Mary, but that I will find this God by looking at the love that went into the creation of Bible and Mary and people in general. This is a concept that seems easy, but I’m finding so hard to put into words.
We are told that when God made me, he endowed my nature with the perfection of his own nature, but that I must cleanse myself from any wickedness that I have let accumulate upon myself. And that when I can see from the eye of my soul, then I “will see clearly within the pure brilliance of my own heart.” Which will be purity, holiness, simplicity, and other brilliant reflections of the nature of God.