War and the Bhagavad Gita

I think the universe gives us independence to think and act. Trouble is, many people are incapable of using that freedom - they'd rather remain in a prison constructed of purely emotional/mental views etc.
Obvously, if I act, it is the universe acting through me - but in a unique way. It coud not act in precisely the same way through another becasue of the unique individuality of each infinitesimal part.
It seems that the higher consciousness is not tied to any particular part of the universe, or any particular form. However, we humans are the locus through which the conscious aspects are expressed - or are beginning to be expressed. As we evolve, more will be expressed. Religions etc are simply a stage in this process, which perhaps now is getting ready for another step forward.

What I reject is a view such as the xian one where we are seen as 'sheep' - incapable of doing anything really without the master there to tell us what to do. That is a way to ensure, as c/.anity has done. that religion lacks any element of true spirituality.
The script seems to be that we make a big mess, and then god has to appear to put it right. Punishing the sinners too - presumably for being unconscious.
It's not going to happen - we have to solve our own problems. That might involve us becoming god ourselves.

 

You contradict yourself here. If univese is God, there is no "you", there is only the universe. The universe now is an entity of consciousness that appears as all these things, there are no problems, no troubles, what is troubling for us, are not really troubles at all. What really exists is simply that play of the universe that appears as all these small little seperate things. Universe is the real "Self". Hence, the desires such as world peace or even small desires like what I will eat this morning is dependent on that universe, not on the egosense. All of this I derived from your logic that universe is God.

 

The individual is one expression of universal being - the universe has its structure, and the individual is part of that. The challenge for the individual is to rise above the purely individual consciousness and become aware of the universal of which they are one aspect.
So we are both the individual and the universal at once.

I think perhaps the difference in views here is based on the idea that relative existence is somehow less than absolute existence. I think both are real - the relative is the expression in time/space/form of the universe or god, if you prefer.

My desire for breakfast comes from the structure of my body, and it is a desire common to all such bodies - it is also a particular expression of the universal will to live and survive. Thus in eating I gratify not only my personal desire/need for food, but also the desire or will of the universe. IT or She wants me to eat - in order to continue to be able to express the particular aspect of the universal being which I am. I feed myself, but I feed the universe too.

Sorry if this seems a bit hard to penetrate - it's difficult to express.

 

But the individual self that you are referring to is only a momentary rise in the universal self by your claims that universe is one entity.
Let me be clear as to why I get this impression from this idea that universe is God.
There are two ways universe can be "God" BBB.
#1 The collection of all little real entities are claimed to make up this one group called "The universe" hence, "God"= group of little real individuals .

-OR-
#2 The universe is only a single entity, The "One" universe appears as as all these individual entities. Hence, "God"=one entity, not a group.

Now, in my opinion, we cannot possibly define universe according to the first choice given above, because we already assume that universe is infinite, it is not a finite entity that is restricted with a finite number of individual entities with in it. Universe is multifaceted, hence if you claim that things 1, 2, 3 ,4 are "universe" then you are excluding anything that comes after 4 from your statement hence rendering such a statement about the universe to be a statement of its "finiteness" and therefore "false". Secondly, even if you claim that everything to infinity defines the universe, then you wouldn't call that "universe" ,because then too for that universe to exist as "the group that is called the universe" it should exclude something that is not "universe". What I am stating here is that for a group to be classified as one group, it only stands as such in relation to that which is not that group. Hence, this idea that it these limited entities make up this universe does not provide us with the truth.

Therefore, we can claim that only the second idea that God= one entity not a group, and He forms all these is "True" or in accordance with what is "reality" (based on assumption that universe is God). Then, we liken this universe to a computer RPG game. The game contains various characters, and all these characters are assumed to have seperate identities. However, there is no depth to that assumption because when you really look inside, it is the code of the computer game that is acting as such characters. One character is probably fighting another character, but really, it is the computer game that is fighting and the fighting itself is the computer game. What really exists now is the computer game, not the individual characters. The computer game, acting as these various characters may delude itself in each character to think that it is that character simply to play around in itself. However, when the character is killed or destroyed, it will not be the end of the computer game, simply the code is written into something else.



....With this analogy applied to the universe.... we can state that...
The universe appears like BBB, Jedi, etc.. and in each assumes a seperate identity, what truly exists is not Jedi or BBB, but the universe acting as such entities. There maybe problems that it sees through these characters like Jedi or BBB, but such problems are actually the universe itself acting as problems so that these entities may identify them as problems. When the universe situated in the assumed identites of "Jedi" or "BBB" realizes that they are simply products of its mind, it realizes that there are no problems, it is simply a play of maya. God is that way, if you say universe= God, He is the one who solves our problems, however, the solving and not solving is not upto the individual characters like Jedi, BBB, or some other individual.

 

I'll get back to you on this Jedi - haven't time right now.

 

no problem.

 

In my view, it is both at once - and perhaps more than that too.

It's almost impossible for the mind to get beyond the evident contradiction, I know.
Sri Aurobindo was one who saw the limitations of our mental knowledge - he said that there is a supramental mode of consciousness, above the level of mind, where all these seeming contradictions are resolved in a higher knowledge and being.
Where he differed from vedantic philosophy is that he said the attainment of the consciousness of the absolute unity of all being (and non-being) does not mean that we would cease to see the world of multiplicity also.
Rather than having our current limited mental divisions into categories of 'one' and 'many', everything will be resolved into a higher unity, which at the same time embraces and upholds and expresses the existence of the world of multiplicity.

To go off on a different tangent - it occurs to me that perhaps my saying 'the universe is god' has different implications for one with a background in Indian culture, rather than a western person like me who has only studied it and so on.
Partly, what I want to express is a rejection of the idea of traditional western christianity, islam and judaism that god is 'wholly other' as they somethimes put it. For them. god is totally trascensent - there is no doctrine really that god is omnipresent as there is in most Hindu philosophy. He is like an overseer, completely separate from his creation.
This has historically gone along with a kind of world-rejecting view - where the creation is seen as basically flawed and even evil, due to sin etc.

Thus the idea has been commonly held that mankind has a right to do as he likes with the world, without regard to the damage he is inflicting. I use the word 'mankind' here, rather than 'humankind' which I prefer, because in that world view, women are also regarded with suspicion, and have generally been disempowered in both the religious and the secular sense.

So by saying 'the universe is god' or 'the universe is divine', I'm trying to counter this general view. I think it is necessary for people to wake up to the fact that our rape of the planet can't go on. We need to get back to a world view where we reverence nature and the forces of nature that sustain life.
We have to try to see that the divine is present in nature - in animals, plants, minerals - the earth itself. All of it is , as is said a 'living garment of the divine'.
The self-consciousness of the divine is obviously not tied to any time or place - it transcends limitations of time-space locality. It can be expressed through us. We can become channels or conduits through which the higher consciousness flows (or at least trickles). But still, so long as we are embodied on the physical plane, we remain also separate individuals. We live two lives - the 'big' life of a higher awareness, and the 'little life' of our personal karmas and so on.

Of course, I'm not stating anything here dogmatically - no doubt there are many other aspects of things.

 

I think I see what you are trying to say BBB, maybe what we are discussing is not really contradictory. If the universe is God, then we assume that even when we act to stop the "rape" of our planet, what is really doing it is the universe.

 

Yes - acting through us.

 

Therefore She is acting in Herself, all through Herself, therefore she is not really acting.- All of this ofcourse according to the idea that Universe is God.

In either way BBB, you and I are nothing but a wave in this ocean of samsara, we come into being and we perish, however your universe lives on.