Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Hi everyone, I'm so glad to have found this thread. I knew I couldn't be the only one who doesn't believe in the 'guy upstairs watching out for me.' I am not a believer but I AM a somewhat spiritual person and feel very close to and in wonder of nature.
My sister gave me a wonderful relaxation cd that I've put onto my mp3 player. It's by the Hemi Sync series and is called the Chemotherapy Companion. The jacket reads: "Support a positive outcome for your chemotherapy with this verbally-quided Hemi-Sync exercise." Whenever my body feels tied up in knots and I feel poorly, which is often since I'm still undergoing chemo, this exercise helps me feel better. I'm not affiliated in any way, just thought I'd share.
Sandy0 -
Love the calendar quote. I've used the Brush Dance "Live with Intention" calendar for years. This year, the January quotation is:
"it's wonderful to wake up in the morning knowing you're doing all that you can do." The calligraphy & Japanese brush stroke painting is beautiful. Just to give you a reason to look forward to Feb:
""Look out at the stars - watch the moon - KNOW you are loved."
Brush Dance has a great website, inspiring . Happy Today.
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Who/what is Bush Dance, Hemisync?
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thank you binVA. Hope you all don't object to me doing this. I don't pray, but I would like to share joy.
For Jan 26 from The wisdom of the East calendar:
God is in the water of the lake;
he is also in the cracked bed
of the lake when the lake has dried up.
- Mansur al-Hallaj
Top o' the morning
Arlene
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Hi, Souad,
Brush Dance is a company, thisnk it's in CA - and it makes many calendars, printed journals, inspiring materials. I think you'd like it. They have a website: http://www.brushdance.com/
One of my favorite quotes, is from the poet Tagore: " Faith is the bird that feels the light, and sings while the dawn is still dark."
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hi Caerus - and thanks for that website info. Your quote from Tagore - how beautiful. so deeply feeling. How many of us must have felt so often during our cancer and other journeys. thank you.
Arlene
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Arlene .. I love the quote you posted for us this a.m. Sometimes I feel like the lake has dried up .. good to remember the wonderful times in the water of the lake.
Sometimes it's hard to have that faith in the morning darkness.
Here's my favorite quote by physicist Edward Teller:
When you get to the end of all the light you know and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.
Bren
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Bren
I LOVE LOVE LOVE that quote - so perfect - thank you. I've heard of Edward Teller - but now have to learn more about him. Fabulous he's a physicist. Thanks again...
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Very nice quote, Bren!
Here's one that I like ...
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.
I need to say it every day.
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Thursday's Wisdom of the East - for Bren and others:
The sage puts himself last and finds
himself in the foremost place.
- Lao-tzu
Duh? Not exactly warm & fuzzy so my pedantic side wants to comment. Taoism is pretty hard for westerners to understand. At least, it has always been for me - and I've had copies of the I Ching and Tao de Ting for 30 yrs. but, finally, maybe i get it. Via my Buddhist studies and reading Eckhart Tolle.
I think perhaps by "himself", he means our conventional self - the ego and logical thinking brain - which is often thought to actually impede us. the "foremost place" is another way of saying "going with the flow". when you go with the flow of the universe, you are experiencing the least resistance - hence you are at the best possible spot, wherever you are. hence you are a sage.
Good morning, all
Arlene
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I actually find peace in a panthiest philosophy. I don't believe in a traditional god but I do believe in the sustaining circle of life and the gift of science. This is such a capricious disease and I think everyone needs to find comfort where they can.
When someone says they will pray for me I know that they are offering their most precious gift. I think of it as time out of their life to think of me and a good outcome for me.
Unlike believers I don't have to try to make sense out of why me. I don't have to wonder what I have done to bring this on. I have the luxury of knowing that it just happened and that is a blessing.
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Welcome Brigadoon! So nice to see you here! I like your last sentence. There is freedom in not having to make sense of it. Of just knowing it was errant cells and nothing I cosmically did to bring on the cancer. I did have a friend who told me when I was diagnosed that I was responsible for having cancer because I was not right in my spiritual life.
Arlene .. love today's quote. Good take on it. I like being at the best possible spot, no matter where that might be. I think the foremost place is where we find our peace.
Hope everyone has a great day,
Bren
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Your friends reaction is what II call that "the whistling by the graveyard" defense. It is the reason that some people believe. Kind of like throwing salt over your shoulder or not walking under a ladder.
Thank you for the welcome!
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Welcom brigadoon. What is a panthiest philosophy? I have never heard of that. But, I too, like the idea of not being to blame for my cancer.
Binva, I always wonder why people feel it necessary to appoint themselves the "authority" on such matters.
I look forward to your daily quotes. Something to think about and ponder.
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Pantheism is the view that the Universe (Nature) and God are identical.[1] Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Ancient Greek: πᾶν (pan) meaning ‘all' and θεός (theos) meaning ‘God'. As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a way of relating to the Universe.[2] Although there are divergences within Pantheism, the central ideas found in almost all versions are the Cosmos as an all-encompassing unity and the sacredness of Nature.
There a many scholars and scientists who are panthiests. I am neither. I am just a person who has found peace in the cycle of life. I searched for a long time and this is where I ended up.
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I didn't know what a pantheist was either. Thanks for posting Brigadoon. That view is the one that most closes matches my thinking and feelings. I like the idea of the Cosmos as an all-encompassing unity and the sacredness of Nature.
Bren
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Me too. I really cringe at the idea of the santa claus god.
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Brigadoon - and that idea rings true for me too. If you feel inclined to post, I'd love to hear more about what you've discovered about pantheism - for instance, would the ancient Celtic religion be pantheist? Or witches? It also seems akin to Taoism, where there is also no personal or creator god or an anthropomorphic one. But a deep connection to the sacredness of nature and the universe, of which we are not apart.if only we could realize it.
After I took both science and religion courses (the science ones were called Physicists of the Nuclear Age and the Astronomer's universe - for non-scientists) I was blown away by the thought that i, we, right now, are the very latest, on the tip of the advancing wave of creation - we are the universe's latest expression, and just as important as all other creation - down to the last bit of dried-up mud in the lake (quote from a few days ago). when people say they see God in nature,really, I believe they mean the same thing. Religions are, for one thing, cultural constructs, so in the xian world we see a personal god as that powerful man in the sky - pictures on the ceiling of the Cistine sp?) chapel. I have the idea that certain religious traditions, maybe even Xianity at the beginning, and certainly Buddhism, and I think Judaism? banned all icons because we can't really describe "god" , and it's weird to me now to realize that in our Xian culture we picture god as a version of ourselves.
But i can't for the life of me remember a thing about Edward? Teller!given another life, I'd love to be a theoretical physicist! (I'd also have to given a brain that can do math)
Looking forward to your input, Brigadoon.
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Arlene .. I don't know much about Teller. My son is working on his masters thesis in physics right now. He graduated with a degree in physics and I was looking for a quote to put on the card I got for him. That's how I found the Edward Teller quote, I was looking for something from a physicist for Luke.
Bren
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I, too, like the thought of the Cosmos as an all-encompassing unity and the sacredness of Nature, although I'm frankly uncomfortable with the "baggage" that a word like sacred carries. I have always felt a part of the "one" that is our world -- one of the reasons I am a vegetarian and am so opposed to the death penalty. I never want to be the cause of the death of another being -- for me, every life has worth. Maybe that's the word I'd substitute for "sacred;" simply, worth. Souad, I've been interested in Eastern philosophies for some time. Could you recommend any reading on Taoism? From what you've said, it sounds like something I'd like to learn more about. I've read a little about Buddhism, but was put off at one point when I visited a website chatroom in which members were bickering about the "validity" of the lineage of their "brand" of Buddhism.0
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When I took physics,
we had to read "Magic, Science and Religion" by Malinowski..mind
you this was back in 1960..good read
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I am no scholar. My Panthiest beliefs come from a viseral connection to the wonder that surrounds me. I feel it and it is enough. Perhaps that is the connection to the ancient religions also. Where I think they differ is in their need to ritualize it and explain it. I don't feel that need. I simply feast on it, take joy in it, break out in song and cry at its amazing symmetry. The great minds, the astronomers, the artists, the physicists, the researchers all give me pieces that make the mystery of the universe even more wondrous but it is not the knowledge that gives me the connection. It is just the existence.
http://www.pantheism.net/paul/index.htm
This link will give you some wonderful explanations but it is all made small by words.
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Hi ladies. Souad, love the quotes you posted. I think if I were forced to choose a label for my world view, it would probably be pantheism. The beauty I see in nature takes my breath away and I feel certain that there must be a creator of it all. I've made myself reasonably aware of what different religions believe, and there's something I find hollow in them all.
Quite some time ago I was reading books by Caroline Myss. I'm especially fond of her explanation of religions. Throughout all recorded history, man has witnessed everyday occurrences that are beyond our understanding. We can see the moon and the stars on a daily basis, but they are beyond our everyday grasp of understanding. So man creates myths and legends to attempt an explanation of things that defy description. It's how we try to make sense of things beyond our grasp.
Myss talks about many things in her books, and that is the part that stands out in my memory. She conducts a lot of seminars and is easy to find on youtube. ...thought I'd make mention of her in case others might enjoy hearing or reading her perspectives also.
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JulieH,
Here is a link to the Tao Te Ching. http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html
The above translation of the Tao Te Ching is easy to read but gives an excellent feel of how very profound the work is. Think about the Buddhists arguing over lineages and then read this from the Tao.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.The Tao Te Ching is only about 5000 Chinese characters long and has no punctuation. There are a great many translations and each is slightly different. Even the order of the chapters changes as scholars review the ancient texts. I had 4 translations at one time.
The Tao Te Ching was my introduction to Eastern philosophy. I recommend two books on the Tao Te Ching for their quality of translations and historical footnotes. Both these can be rather dry but have excellent detail on the work itself.
Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching by Robert G. Henricks --- This is a scholarly work and has many footnotes.
Taoism * The Parting of the Way by Holmes Weech --- This is more readable and goes into the history and development of the Tao from a philosophy to a religion.
Taoism like Buddhism and Confucianism can be followed as moral philosophies or as religions. Unlike other religions, these three have no creation story or creator gods.
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Good morning all. I can't wait to more slowly read over these great posts and do some chatting, and eventually, reading.
but for now, todays' quote from my little calendar is:
Intelligence is the seeing of what is.
- Krishnamurti
wishing you all happiness today.
Arlene
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I don't believe in any "ism"
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Hi Lisa!
Arlene .. I get it .. we are so much wiser for seeing things as they are, rather than what we wish them to be. I spend too much time in my 'wish' world. I don't want to miss out on what is right in front of me!
I'm a nature girl too. I find my absolute moments of peace when I see the hawks fly overhead or I'm picking blackberries and making a pie.
Hoping everyone is enjoying their day!
Bren
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Spring is just around the corner and then comes gardening.
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You know how much I love the flowers
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I walked into a building supply store yesterday and into their plant room and nearly swooned. flowers - primulas, hyacinths, tulips, daffs, - all blooming in wee pots just waiting to be put into a basket together for an indoor spring garden.....
Today's is another Taoist quote:
Easy is right.
Begin easy and you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
- Chuang Tzu
Chuang Tzu live about 4th & 3rd BCE (before the common era ie BC). When Buddhsim travelled north to china it was heavily influenced by Taoism to form a kind of buddhism called Chan (from the Sanskrit jnana ("absorption": Not Self correct me if I'm wrong) When Chan got to Japan it became "Zen". They had a hard time prononuncing each others' language!
I happened to be glancing through my book of his - called The Way of Chuang Tzu - which was translated by the Xian mystic Thomas Merton. who had a way with words.
So, here's Chuang Tzu's poem this quote comes from:
When the Shoe Fits
Ch'ui the draftsman
Could draw more perfect circles freehand
Than with a compass.
His fingers brought forth
Spontaneous forms from nowhere. His mind
Was meanwhile free and without concern
With what he was doing.
No application was needed
His mind was perfectly simple
And knew no obstacle.
So, when the shoe fits
The foot is forgotten,
When the belt fits
The belly is forgotten,
When the heart is right
"For and "against" are forgotten.
No drives, no compulsions,
No needs, no attractions:
Then your affairs
Are under control.
You are a free man.
Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.
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