God, Jesus, Garden of Eden, The Fruit, Satan... (Another Explanation - True Nature)...

God is Love, and because God is love itself and not "lovING" we know that this Love is unconditional because Love can only Love.

Love protects, cares for, nurtures, and according to the bible it "holds no records or wrongdoings and does not boast".

True love is keeping an "openness" with all of the people you encounter in your life. If you are "passionate" about one person, then your love is not unconditional, because this "passion" is based on the person - the conditions instead of YOU - YOUR inner nature/quality.

Unconditional Love, True Love is Peace. True Peace is not a "law" force upon others. True peace is "relaxation" that comes from within, and this relaxation affects how you treat others whether with more acceptance and open-mindedness or more rejection and judgement.

The Garden of Eden represents the perfect place. The place where life is simple, easy, and we are ONE with God knowing that we are not separated. Understanding our unity with the animals (being able to speak with them) and our unity with God (being able to speak to).

The Garden of Eden is Nature, Simpleness, Peace (Relaxation), Unity...

God is Peace...

Jesus was a spiritual "doctor" curing people of their "disease" - their belief in a separation from God. The healing happens because they felt God's presence with them - THAT is the true healing...

As Jesus says "It was your faith that healed you"...

By having peace within you , being relaxed, living life normally letting emotion come and go but understanding Relaxation - this love - God - as the root of it all - your pain and suffering will be healing will numb...

Satan is the destruction of this, giving the fruit of knowledge to make humans to STRIVE and to open their eyes and always want MORE AND MORE.

The fruit of knowledge sounds like something good, but being in the moment is even better because the knowledge arises in the moment when it is needed and the TRUTH is revealed that Nature is Balance and that in our hearts we can have PEACE.

The fruit of knowledge is a mindset... a trick to get humans to keep yearning for more and more...

reply to post by arpgme

God is Love, and because God is love itself and not "lovING" we know that this Love is unconditional because Love can only Love.

Hi Arpgme, Can you explain what love is? Not what love does, but what it is. My thinking is that love is on one end of a line of emotions, with all emotions made of the same stuff as love.



So, if a god feels love then he must also feel all of the other emotions. One cannot have the ability to love without having the ability to hate. IMO

reply to post by arpgme
I enjoyed reading your opening post. I am not sure you are looking for comments since I did not see any question or specific invitation, but here goes anyway.

I agree that Jesus definitely taught that we are not separate from God. He taught the self-transcending way of loving God fully and one's neighbor as oneself - along with waking up his most ardent followers to the Divine Spirit Light Above.

Originally posted by arpgme
Love protects, cares for, nurtures, and according to the bible it "holds no records or wrongdoings and does not boast".

This appears that you are assuming that the Creator God of the Bible exists as Love and that such a one protects all of us. This is clearly not what happens in this world - people are being killed constantly. I cannot buy into the notion that a Creator God exists and creates all these horrific events out of love. Maybe I am misreading your post's intention though, so if you can elaborate on whether God as Love is also the Creator God, that would help. (Don't get me wrong, I am not disputing that God is Love, but only the notion of God as Creator.)

Originally posted by arpgme
True love is keeping an "openness" with all of the people you encounter in your life. If you are "passionate" about one person, then your love is not unconditional, because this "passion" is based on the person - the conditions instead of YOU - YOUR inner nature/quality.

Yes, staying open with everyone is good and true - and also simple when we recognize moment to moment that we all arise in fundamental unity. However, being very passionate with a person certainly can still be possible all the while recognizing one's fundamental unity. What you suggest sounds like the human race would die out if we just loved one another but never felt in love and passionate for a specific other.

Originally posted by arpgme
True peace is "relaxation" that comes from within, and this relaxation affects how you treat others whether with more acceptance and open-mindedness or more rejection and judgement.

True peace is not found within, just like it is not found without. Yes, there are many techniques for becoming inwardly calm, etc., but such are experiential (i.e., conditional) states. Unconditional peace is seen to be the case when all inward and outward seeking subsides - including going beyond just a mental understanding of this, as is commonly presumed these days, it seems.

Why do we tend to think Reality or Truth is contained, and/or can be found, within these little body-minds? Isn't that kind of presumptuous of us? All inner seeking is of no more use to discovering absolute Truth than all the outer seeking - as no experience is the Unconditional Truth.

Originally posted by arpgme
The fruit of knowledge is a mindset... a trick to get humans to keep yearning for more and more...

If knowledge or materialism or control of matter through knowledge is all that man strives for, yes, that does create distraction from one's true nature. However, if one recognizes one's non-separation from God and others, then developing knowledge and discovery can be very useful. If done on the basis of love, it will be benign and potentially of great help to many. Such a person can be very passionate about such discovery - and Unconditional Love does not have to fade as a result. In fact, if it did fade, it was not likely Unconditional Love to begin with, because by definition the Unconditional is beyond the conditional.

Anyway, as I said, I do appreciate your thought-provoking post, but also wanted to say a few of the things about it that I do not agree with. Thank you.

Interesting take on the genesis/garden of Eden story. Sadly, It's not one I see supported by the bible itself or any of it's lost books. Though I agree with you that knowledge makes me want more and more of it..

In the christian cannon the tree of knowledge was reported to give Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil. Something I personally find odd was ever forbidden to begin with since one could say Adam and Eve now know the difference between the two. I would think "god" would want that in two would-be servants, but for some reason we can only speculate "god" chose to forbid eating of it. It never actually explains why.

However, the Nag Hammadi / Dead sea scrolls paints an entirely different picture of the forbidden tree. As far as to say that it was forbidden not by God, but the by the accidental creation of one of Gods aspects -In this case Wisdom who was also named Sophia. Sophie's accidental creation became known as Ignorance, and in fact was so (he thought he was alone and therefor God). It was after Sophia realized humans where involved that she, being wisdom, planted the tree for Adam and Eve to eat and know. And it was Sophia herself who transformed into the snake and spoke to Eve. As we know Adam and Eve did not die but where taken from the garden.

Take that how you will..

Originally posted by Inquisitive1
Interesting take on the genesis/garden of Eden story. Sadly, It's not one I see supported by the bible itself or any of it's lost books. Though I agree with you that knowledge makes me want more and more of it..

In the christian cannon the tree of knowledge was reported to give Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil. Something I personally find odd was ever forbidden to begin with since one could say Adam and Eve now know the difference between the two. I would think "god" would want that in two would-be servants, but for some reason we can only speculate "god" chose to forbid eating of it. It never actually explains why.

The Adama, the Eva, were not physical forms; more of an idea of a form. No need to eat anything or be aware of a "body" needing covering etc. The Garden of Eden was a 4th dimensional thinktank laboratory experiment. The act of consuming was a metaphor for "matter" and in so doing became by falling in frequency (disobeyance) a 3 dimensional form. None of this actually happened real time, ideas are powerful and birthed a human form POTENCIAL that had to clothe itself (SELF AWARENESS) and had to find physical sustainance, pure energy not an option; again this is all symbolic explainative of the true creation of the human specie (millions of years of genetic engineering, trials, failures).

inquisitive
However, the Nag Hammadi / Dead sea scrolls paints an entirely different picture of the forbidden tree. As far as to say that it was forbidden not by God, but the by the accidental creation of one of Gods aspects -In this case Wisdom who was also named Sophia. Sophie's accidental creation became known as Ignorance, and in fact was so (he thought he was alone and therefor God). It was after Sophia realized humans where involved that she, being wisdom, planted the tree for Adam and Eve to eat and know. And it was Sophia herself who transformed into the snake and spoke to Eve. As we know Adam and Eve did not die but where taken from the garden.

With all of the aspects of the demi-Gods running around doing their rack and ruin, I wonder where God was. Allowing for accidental this and that, leaving "free will' to his underlings and letting it all progress chaotically and yet symetrically perfectly not perfect do its own thing. Sophia was one of the compassionate ones. Does the Tree of Life fit in anywhere here, only as an idea. What you think you know is wrong.

reply to post by arpgme

God is Love, and because God is love itself and not "lovING" we know that this Love is unconditional because Love can only Love.

Love cannot love. Only a 'loving' can love. A person loves someone but that person's love does not love that someone!!!
God is Love sounds good but thats about where it ends. A nice catchy line.
Unconditional love is another problem, if a criminal and victim are loved unconditionally and equally then its at least injustice to the victim until the victim forgives himself/herself.

Satan is the destruction of this, giving
the fruit of knowledge to make
humans to STRIVE and to open their
eyes and always want MORE AND
MORE.

they did'nt learn good and evil after eating the fruit, they already committed evil of disobedience when they made the intention of eating it and converted it into action.
Being sent on earth was already planned as said in OT before they even ate it.
The lesson to learn is obedience(worship) to the Only One who is worth Obeying not to accept a shortcut saviour.

Lastly if God is love, it better should be 'God is love except to His son'
otherwise God should love Jesus pbuh equally not less!(God so loved the World...)
God should also love Himself unconditionally.
What the christian idea boils down to is this- God punished Himself for the mistake He made.
A being that makes a mistake is not God.
A being that makes a mistake by design to suffer or make the son suffer is a masochist or a sadist.
A sadomasochist God is definitely not 'Love'!!!

God is loving.
God is just.
God is forgiving.

Nobody needs an innocent to die to get forgiven. Just repent sincerely and God will forgive.
If person A hurts person B and then A repents and sincerely says sorry, then B can forgive.
Is God more limited than a person B that a sacrifice is needed to forgive? If a full payment is made then there is no forgiveness.
If B hurts A equally then no need of forgiveness.
If B hurts himself and then forgives A, then B is a masochist!!

reply to post by vethumanbeing


Another interesting take on it you have aswell. That's all we have, though is interesting takes, versions, and ideas. We'll never really know, which is why I never claim to. I have ideas same as you.

Telling me "what you think you know is wrong" is funny because you are stabbed by it, too.

Originally posted by Inquisitive1
reply to post by vethumanbeing

 

Another interesting take on it you have aswell. That's all we have, though is interesting takes, versions, and ideas. We'll never really know, which is why I never claim to. I have ideas same as you.

Telling me "what you think you know is wrong" is funny because you are stabbed by it, too.

I am aware of the irony as well Inquisitive1; disheartened (tiny bit) because It is not a dream, it is a notion of something gone spiraled down and backwards; I saw the truth in a nanosecond of awareness and oh yes it hurt. The whole expression self determined is derived of many experiences, takes, versions as you call it and combined allows TRUTH behold IT if you can its generality, its false nature, its humor. I think we can know it, grasp it the bottom of the rope (dont grease it God) and give us the chance of not only knowing you but more specifically how we Created YOU. Yes, we created you not the otherwise. Perhaps I was speaking to a God force?, that it knows is flat out wrong about us our ingenuity, and continues to trip us up (even after the debacle of the crucifixion). Jealous God needs to have many Twinkies gullet force fed.

Originally posted by jiggerj
reply to post by arpgme

 

God is Love, and because God is love itself and not "lovING" we know that this Love is unconditional because Love can only Love.

Hi Arpgme, Can you explain what love is? Not what love does, but what it is. My thinking is that love is on one end of a line of emotions, with all emotions made of the same stuff as love.
So, if a god feels love then he must also feel all of the other emotions. One cannot have the ability to love without having the ability to hate. IMO

Jigger, love is not a notion or feeling, it is a FORCE just like gravity; weak strong magnetic, It just hasnt been discovered yet by the great scientific minds of our generation. It is called Loosh force; I suspect it is radioactive and is the Life Force that drives all animated matter (YOU ME US). Hallmark Card love is a misnomer and disengenuous--not true and misleading; best secret ever kept (the real meaning of the word love) no one knows and yet it hides in plain sight. NO ONE KNOWS.

reply to post by arpgme


The human race strives for peace in all ways but the ways that involve relaxing its hunger for excellence, for recognition, for promotion, for awards, for bonuses, for progress. The human race chooses all paths but the path of unconditional goals, and aspirations. Do you not strive for a stronger connection to Isis?

There is no such thing or force as love. There's only things that love, things that love other things. Love, as a noun, as a person, place or thing, is an illusion. Love is an action. Like there is no such thing as a hurt, an anger, a sorrow, a rage, a hate, there is no such thing as a love.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


There is no such thing as "love" - there is no affection? no enjoyment? no liking towards others?

There is just action?

If love is to "care for" or "help" others... and you help someone who is very negative being destructive to society, and you help a loved one who is very close to you... you will notice the "FEELING" that it is more than an action.

Helping someone who is just so mean to others does not "FEEL" the same as helping someone who is nice and close to me. I have noticed this difference... this "FEELING"... this "THING"....

(Again this is assuming that the definition being used for "love" is "to care for" or "feel affection for", which was NOT how I was using the word in the Original Post).

reply to post by logical7


I like the point you made. Love cannot do anything, it can only happen when one person takes this love and aims it toward another. Then one being will be sending love to another but the love itself is not doing the loving.

I understand your point completely...

However, I already defined how I am using the word "love" here. I am talking more about an "openness" (state of relaxation) towards others equally and fairly.. This cannot be "aimed" at anyone. It is there for all to tap into and you can choose to stay more "there" in each moment if you choose too. Or you can allow the drama to take you in for your emotion...

By the way, you said if people were loving then crimes would go unpunished which would be an injustice to the one who was harmed...

Well if that person was relaxed they wouldn't feel such a impulse by their emotions to go out and harm others.

reply to post by arpgme

If love is to "care for" or "help" others... and you help someone who is very negative being destructive to society, and you help a loved one who is very close to you... you will notice the "FEELING" that it is more than an action.

One doesn't need something called love to do any of those. One can care for or help others out of selfishness, self-gratification, vanity, or in the case of Mother Teresa, out of obedience.

Feelings, any feeling, comes from and is produced by the body, not mystical forces we call Love. We don't revere and call sexual arousal God. We don't call jealousy God. We don't call trust God. Yet these are facets of what we call Love.

When two bodies enjoy each others company, there's no love to witness, only two bodies enjoying each others company. It's not some force called love that binds them, but desire, respect, comfort, lust, shared memories—an amalgamation of real observable sensations that appeals to the ones who have them.

Love is a state of appearance. When we see two people in a long passionate embrace we say it must be love, but it can never be anything more than two people in a long passionate embrace.

Originally posted by arpgme
However, I already defined how I am using the word "love" here. I am talking more about an "openness" (state of relaxation) towards others equally and fairly.. This cannot be "aimed" at anyone. It is there for all to tap into and you can choose to stay more "there" in each moment if you choose too. Or you can allow the drama to take you in for your emotion...

By the way, you said if people were loving then crimes would go unpunished which would be an injustice to the one who was harmed...

Well if that person was relaxed they wouldn't feel such a impulse by their emotions to go out and harm others.

This state of relaxation you are describing is an ancient approach engaged particularly in various eastern spiritual traditions in which the practitioner identifies more and more with apparently above the physical body brain-core states. In such states, one's attention is moved out of identification with the gross physical body and even into states above the physical body-mind, and perhaps even transcendent of the gross body-mind.

The motive to do this is typically based on a repulsion to gross physical existence with all of its struggles, desires, lust, pain, and inevitable death. So this has been a long-time passive (or alpha) strategy in response to the aggressiveness of gross physical (omega) existence. It typically is a body-negative "solution".

It seems to me that when Jesus commands his followers to love God fully with one's whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, he is not talking about avoiding life in the physical realm by taking some abstracted relaxed position in the mind as a method of avoiding life and its struggles.

In other words, the real test of one's capacity to love is actually in life, even while loving a specific other day in and day out, in the midst of all the emotional sides of life too. If one's realization cannot embrace life fully as an opportunity for self-transcendence altogether, then practice of the commandments to love fully, especially with one's whole strength (which includes the whole body), would need to be further emphasized.

I hope you understand that this is not to say that a gross materialistic approach to life is what I am advocating here either. One must love whole-bodily, altogether, and then the body-mind is prepared to receive much more profoundly the Love of God that is granted by Divine Grace. I am also not trying to say your approach does not have its merits - it certainly is better than just living the good life without any regard for others.

Jesus' way of love is about the whole body-mind, and whatever that is altogether (gross, subtle, etc.) is to be discovered through such practice of self-transcending love.

reply to post by vethumanbeing

Jigger, love is not a notion or feeling, it is a FORCE just like gravity;

Hmmm, if I am all alone in the woods, gravity will find me and hold me to the ground. If I am alone in the woods and issue forth massive amounts of love, will people suddenly come looking for me or something? Will bears not attack me? Will birds come to rest on my shoulders?

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
Feelings, any feeling, comes from and is produced by the body, not mystical forces we call Love. We don't revere and call sexual arousal God. We don't call jealousy God. We don't call trust God. Yet these are facets of what we call Love.

When two bodies enjoy each others company, there's no love to witness, only two bodies enjoying each others company. It's not some force called love that binds them, but desire, respect, comfort, lust, shared memories—an amalgamation of real observable sensations that appeals to the ones who have them.

Love is a state of appearance. When we see two people in a long passionate embrace we say it must be love, but it can never be anything more than two people in a long passionate embrace.

What you are describing is what is conventionally considered to be love - a conditionally caused feeling in the body-mind. Real love is Unconditional - i.e., beyond of all conditions, and only directly "known" when the whole body-mind is transcended in any given moment of recognition of our actual condition here.

Real Love is not caused - it is inherent in Reality itself. But as long as we are simply identified with these body-minds as our only reality and thereby assuming our separation from Divine Reality, Unconditional Love is apparently hidden.

reply to post by Inquisitive1

In the christian cannon the tree of knowledge was reported to give Adam and Eve the knowledge of good and evil. Something I personally find odd was ever forbidden to begin with since one could say Adam and Eve now know the difference between the two. I would think "god" would want that in two would-be servants, but for some reason we can only speculate "god" chose to forbid eating of it. It never actually explains why.

As far as I am concerned, the "christian cannon" is the New Testament.
I realize that with the advent of printing, it was possible to add the Jewish Bible on as a kind of appendix, and charge more money and so increase profits for the printers, but that does not mean that it is part of the Christian cannon.
There were a lot more New Testaments printed as the Christian Bible, back in the early days of Bible publishing, than there was of the expanded versions.
This character, Yahweh, planted a garden, then it goes on to say that in the midst of the garden was two trees. The other trees, the ones good to look at and to eat, were the ones that were said that Yahweh planted. It does not say how those two trees got there or even if they were already there and that Yahweh decided to plant his garden around them, giving Himself the added prestige of being the guardian of life and good and evil.
In the legendary ancient kingdom of Israel, there was a temple built on Zion by the mythical king, Sun and moon, I mean Solomon. Yahweh decided for whatever reason to make that place His new home.
If you wanted to live, that was the place, as a human, to go, which was the House of Yahweh.
Outside of that house was a tree, or rather different trees, or groups of trees, the Groves, where back before the temple, Yahweh was able to be met, seen, and heard, seeing how Groves were magical places that a god would naturally be drawn to.
They were there and had just always been there, and despite the present existence of said temple on said rock, the ancient practice that had also always just been there, of meeting the gods in the Groves still persisted.
The God of Israel commanded His people, Thou shalt not touch that tree and make use of it, those woods.
Now of course despite the fact that there was a degree of compliance with that demand, there were still those drawn to that beautiful and natural location to worship, which was strictly forbidden.
Thanks to that "sin of the people", life was ruined for everyone, with the nations destroying the temple, their "true" source of life, and was trampled beneath their feet and made barren, unlike the land of milk and honey of the legendary past.
Basically, the main theme of the OT was: Why everything sucks, and why we are poor and our kingdom no more?

reply to post by arpgme


Here's the only relevant/revelant sentence...

"The fruit of knowledge is a mindset... a trick to get humans to keep yearning for more and more..."

A mindset created by whom?

There is a fairly obvious (yet somehow completely subsumed by devil/satan/lucifer-speak) mechanism involved in all these Grimms fairy tales...

The quality (and I use that word faltingly) that is consistent (subtextually speaking) is the concept of abregation of responsibility.

Grow up...

A99

Originally posted by jiggerj
reply to post by vethumanbeing

 

Jigger, love is not a notion or feeling, it is a FORCE just like gravity;

Hmmm, if I am all alone in the woods, gravity will find me and hold me to the ground. If I am alone in the woods and issue forth massive amounts of love, will people suddenly come looking for me or something? Will bears not attack me? Will birds come to rest on my shoulders?

I really do not want to answer that but I will. It is a form of food for other beings non-human. Not the bears or wildlife interested (maybe your material body if hungry). Fear is another great sustainance but not close to the love energy (hate that L word because it is such a misnomer). Energy pure that only certain beings can manufacture. Here is one way of describing it: A Bear is defending its cubs somewhere and a human; percieved maurader is killed. The "energy" of the parent protecting to the (its own perhaps) death is what this energy entails. It is a rare form, like gold or precious gems to us, this is mined and stored, it cannot be manufactured by those seeking it but it is a magik that is particular to the glandular activities of the human. See why I did not want to answer your query? I have heard that the prayer/wish works in cases of dire circumstance; me? not really tried it yet but for some is an option; wish (sending huge love energy) for a large bird metallic flown by a 'rescue team' hopefully not landing on your shoulders "GET OUT OF THE WAY".

reply to post by jiggerj

Love is the very reason for the creation so it's not an emotion as much as it is a basis of creation, as well as the height of reason and logic (from God's perspective).

Everything in this life is and will be judged by an eternal standard of Love.

You'll see when it comes time for your own life review Pops. Keep an open mind..