Do you believe in God and why

[thaibeachlovers]

5 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

BTW, did you read the material I offered over three posts which begin to educate on what the ego is and what it's function is?  There's much more coming.  For those interested, and I can't say whether or not you are, or even what your level of interest is if you are indeed interested, it should prove to be, well, forgive the term, enlightening.

You know I didn't, but IMO ego is the opposite of conscience.

Walt Disney used to put a devil ( ego ) and an angel ( conscience ) on a characters shoulders and the devil would try and convince the character to do something bad and the angel tried to dissuade the character.

I have exactly that scenario many times.

Most recently when looking at a Christmas pudding with caramel sauce. The devil saying "it's OK to eat it at Christmas, and one sugary treat won't hurt". Obviously the angel was saying"you know you shouldn't"

The devil won!

[thaibeachlovers]

23 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

many of you are tempted to congratulate yourselves on the successes of your lives, and blame God, fate, and society for your failures.

If we stop and consider how insignificant we are, we might think differently.

 

Only a few giants of history are remembered and the rest of the countless billions of us since the first human evolved are naught but dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust indeed- religion does get some things right, and the message that we are as nothing in the cosmic experience is well worth remembering.

Sadly, humility is very much lacking among humans who think they are special.

 

Amen.

[Tippaporn]

5 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

If we stop and consider how insignificant we are, we might think differently.

 

Some people take your view and some believe each and every consciousness is precious and needed.  Who is right and who is wrong?  Both can't be correct.  What's a belief?  Can you define it?

 

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Sadly, humility is very much lacking among humans who think they are special.

 

Those folks represent your belief in the insignificance of people in reverse whilst at the same time believing that some pigs are better than others.

[Sunmaster]

2 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

 

Entity?  Perhaps you're not choosing your words wisely?  The use of the word 'entity' and the context in which it is used implies that the ego is an entity unto itself.  An appendage of sorts.

 

"You must understand that there are no real divisions to the self, however, so we speak of various portions only to make the basic idea clear."

 

This is the paradox that needs to be resolved.  Throughout all of my thoughts concerning the ego I keep this paradox at the very front of my mind.  It's easy to gloss over and miss the importance of it.  But I take Seth's warning "you must understand" to heart.  I take that warning together with Seth's many mentions that language is insufficient as there are no words to describe the true nature of ourselves.  So we do the best we can with the tools available.

 

Subordinate?  Again, perhaps you're not choosing your words wisely?  The ego is that aspect of ourselves which is the outer most portion of our physical personality structure which deals most directly with physical reality.  It's function is to sit on the window sill looking both outward and inward.  Subordinate doesn't seem to be a fitting description for such an important function.

 

 

With all due respect, so far not quite. 

 

This specific quote will come later but I include it here as it is a statement about the ego which is so beautifully succinct, and so wonderfully nails the cause of the many misconceptions about the ego.  With a sledgehammer, i might add. 

 

"It cannot relate to a reality that you will not allow it to perceive. It can poorly help you to survive when you do not allow it to use its abilities to discover those true conditions in which it must manipulate. You put blinders upon it, and then say that it cannot see."

 

Boom!!!  We confine our ego with our beliefs, limited beliefs I should add, force it to manipulate in that limited and distorted environment, and then complain about it's poor functioning.  And to add insult to injury we then accuse it, falsely, of being an obstacle which blinds us to our greater reality and actively prevents us from achieving greater understanding of ourselves and our reality.  The ego must function in line with our beliefs.  Not only our beliefs about it but also our beliefs about who we are and our reality in general.  And if our beliefs are limiting then it's no small wonder that we then force our ego to become a guard rather than a guardian, a tyrant instead of a liberator.  That one statement of Seth's forever vindicates the ego of it's poor reputation.  Case closed and damages awarded. 

 

The ego is not some static 'thing'.  It is dynamic.  It is ever changing and evolving.  It is an aspect of us created for a specific purpose - to deal directly with physical reality in a way that other portions of ourselves cannot.  It is not some entity onto itself, an entity which, no less, attempts to limit us and is thus regarded as an enemy of sorts.  So here's a question:  What is the ideal solution if we feel our ego is an obstacle to greater illumination and self discovery?  a) provide it with better beliefs so that it might be able to perform it's function as originally intended or b) circumvent it.

 

I think that the answer for most is to circumvent it.   

 

Anyway, I shall continue with another three posts.

Ok, I see we are jumping right into the deep end of it. 👍

Perhaps I didn't choose my words wisely, as I know that for a Sethian the word "entity" is loaded with a lot more meaning. I know that the ego is not a separate thing and that it is a dynamic system. I'm a visual learner and when I think about the ego, I picture a wave. If you look for it, you can't find a clear separation between the wave and the rest of the ocean, yet we can still identify that little portion of the ocean and give it a name (wave). This is a great analogy for the ego. We have an idea of what it looks like even though it is in constant change, because it still is identifiable as an apparent, separate entity. 
However, if we use our inner senses and start to explore and analyze the ego from within, if we dig deeper and deeper, we come to realize that what we thought had form as an entity, under close scrutiny evaporates right before our eyes. It is nothing more than consciousness itself, temporarily manifesting as a conglomeration of energy. So, why the need to defend this small portion of your existence? 
 

 

3 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

Subordinate?  Again, perhaps you're not choosing your words wisely?  The ego is that aspect of ourselves which is the outer most portion of our physical personality structure which deals most directly with physical reality.  It's function is to sit on the window sill looking both outward and inward.  Subordinate doesn't seem to be a fitting description for such an important function.

Yes, subordinate. Just like the wave is a subordinate system of the ocean, the ego is an expression of a bigger system. This is not judging its value (good or bad)....it's just a dispassionate observation. Of course, it's an important function, I'm not denying that. 

 

3 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

The ego must function in line with our beliefs.  Not only our beliefs about it but also our beliefs about who we are and our reality in general.  And if our beliefs are limiting then it's no small wonder that we then force our ego to become a guard rather than a guardian, a tyrant instead of a liberator.  That one statement of Seth's forever vindicates the ego of it's poor reputation.

I want to make one thing clear. This is not a witch-hunt against the ego. The ego itself is not the problem. 
The problem is our identification with the ego. 
Would it make sense for the ocean to identify with a tiny wave and believe that this is all it is? 

Ultimately, what every religion at its core, every spiritual path is doing, is to shift the perspective from the subordinate, apparent wave-entity to the ocean-entity. But even that is not the end. Even the ocean is subordinate to something else. Can you guess what it is?

 

3 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

So here's a question:  What is the ideal solution if we feel our ego is an obstacle to greater illumination and self discovery?  a) provide it with better beliefs so that it might be able to perform it's function as originally intended or b) circumvent it.

 

I think that the answer for most is to circumvent it.   

Who is that which is feeling? Is it the ocean or the wave talking about itself? 
The wave will find a million reasons to justify its own existence and why we should "improve" it and not "kill" it like a bloodsucking vampire. But a rabid, aggressive dog doesn't become tame just by fitting it out with a cute dog costume. A restless monkey will not calm down by trying to reason with it. What you focus on, you give energy to. Why focusing on your wave-ness when you can just as well focus on the ocean-ness?

The ocean in the meantime, is there to witness it all. No need to change anything, no need to improve anything. Whatever happens on its surface doesn't affect its ocean-ness at all. 

One more time to make this completely clear. The ego as an apparent, separate entity is neither good or bad. It is what it is. 
It is helpful for when we interact with the material world. 
It is not helpful if it prevents us from seeing that we are the ocean.
The difference is the degree to which we identify with it. 
Which brings us back to the ultimate question: Who am I? 
Am I the wave, the ocean or.....?







 

[Tippaporn]

19 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

You know I didn't, but IMO ego is the opposite of conscience.

 

Why not read the posts?  No harm to it.  But there's great potential, too.

 

Your opinion is just one belief that you picked up on your travels through life and never again bothered to question as to whether it's true or not.  You must have had experience in life where you picked up a belief, examined it and found it not to be true, and dropped it.  No one is without such experience.

 

Could it be possible your idea of the ego isn't true?  Reading the posts would at least give you the opportunity to question your belief and if you found what is written to be true then you could divest yourself of an unhealthy belief.  Why not take advantage of it?

[brianthainess]

57 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

 Isn't the reason obvious? It would be difficult to create a religion based upon the founder being a 'bastard'. Therefore, the story of a 'virgin birth' was essential. 

Yes it is Obvious to me, not sure who the founder was though a virgin rapist, or his bastard son, who hung around with 12 blokes and never married, shagged one prostitute, and then realized women were not his thing.             Mary had a little lamb is more believable.

[Sunmaster]

Sorry to post this again, but I think it's fitting the conversation about perspectives (of which the ego-perspective is one).

The ego creates the world around us as a mirror to our own beliefs. We sit on top of the tiny island, believing that's all there is, and from there we project our movie onto the big silver screen of consciousness. Some movies are fun, some dark, some sad, some full of regret, sorrow, anger....but they are all temporary. Only one thing remains the same despite the type of movie that is playing: the screen. The screen (consciousness itself) remains untouched by even the vilest or ecstatic movies. 
What we struggle to realize is that the tiny island is not just a small speck of land, but it is the tip of an endless network that is more or less hidden from plain sight.
We keep the waters muddy by exclusively focusing on the outside. The ego being our primary tool for that.
By focusing on the inside however, we are able to clear the waters surrounding us, enabling us to see much deeper under the water. 
The last pic shows someone who has done that. The water is clear and he can see that his island is connected to all other islands. By dis-identifying and not being affected by the movie, our hero succeeds in piercing through the veil and entering the much bigger system underneath. 

So, when a teacher says "kill the ego" or "put a stake through the vampire's heart", all it means is to take a step back, become the observer of the ego. That way you may gain enough space to detach yourself from its grip and see that YOU and the ego are not the same thing. 
YOU have a body, YOU have an ego, YOU have a personality, a name, YOU have memories, feelings, thoughts, beliefs...these are all temporary objects, they all come and go. But who or what is experiencing them?

Who is this "I" that observes them coming and going? 

 

[xylophone]

55 minutes ago, brianthainess said:

Yes it is Obvious to me, not sure who the founder was though a virgin rapist, or his bastard son, who hung around with 12 blokes and never married, shagged one prostitute, and then realized women were not his thing.             Mary had a little lamb is more believable.

Something to consider............

 

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people.

If they did there would be no religious people!". 

 

And anyway what is irrational about, a snake that talks, a woman being created from the rib of a man, a virgin birth, rising from the dead, a man being transported high into the sky, an old man building a wooden ship big enough to hold a pair of every creature on earth and so the stories go on..........

However the upside is that for paedophiles and homosexuals out there, the religious sects provided plenty of opportunity for them.

 

[Sunmaster]

18 minutes ago, xylophone said:

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people.

If they did there would be no religious people!".

You think rational arguments work with non-religious people? 

I see no evidence of that.

[brianthainess]

11 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Something to consider............

 

"Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people.

If they did there would be no religious people!". 

 

And anyway what is irrational about, a snake that talks, a woman being created from the rib of a man, a virgin birth, rising from the dead, a man being transported high into the sky, an old man building a wooden ship big enough to hold a pair of every creature on earth and so the stories go on..........

However the upside is that for paedophiles and homosexuals out there, the religious sects provided plenty of opportunity for them.

 

Agree they are Mucking Fental, that long queue for the ark and all the food needed, why would birds walk to the ark? Did they drug all the big cats. yet another of their gods good deeds, drown everybody HE supposedly created in the image of himself, sorry can't stop my cat is talking to me, something about his ancestors ate all the spiders on the ark, but some fleas survived. 

 

 

[xylophone]

3 minutes ago, brianthainess said:

Agree they are Mucking Fental, that long queue for the ark and all the food needed, why would birds walk to the ark? Did they drug all the big cats. yet another of their gods good deeds, drown everybody HE supposedly created in the image of himself, sorry can't stop my cat is talking to me, something about his ancestors ate all the spiders on the ark, but some fleas survived. 

 

 

 

Not to mention how the  different species of penguins from Antarctica managed to walk all that way to hitch a lift!! Maybe it really is a fairy tale???????????? 

[Sunmaster]

Just to clarify something for our anti-religious friends here. 
We are not trying to promote religion over materialism. Both are just belief systems. Both are imperfect and incomplete because they have to use language to exist. They are both just very loose interpretations of what they are trying to describe. Both are just wave-constructs, impermanent thought-forms that cannot be taken as the ultimate answer to what the ocean is. There is no judgement. The ocean doesn't think one wave is better than the other, right? It's not an 'either-or' argument....from the perspective of the ocean, both have their validity.

What we are trying to understand is "Is there an ocean beneath the waves?" and "How do I know/experience this ocean?". 
These questions go beyond religion and materialism. They are intimate questions that are at the very core of our existence. 

If you think that subscribing to the materialistic view will answer these questions, fine. I'd like to know how.
If others believe that endorsing one or the other religion can answer them, fine too. Again, I'd like to know how. 

How well a belief system can answer the above questions determines its usefulness. 
Materialism, by its own definition, only cares about the material world. It has no answers to the subjective inner world question of "Who am I?". Materialism proposes the idea that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain (nothing more than a theory), but anything beyond that is either ignored or brushed off with a promise that "sometime in the future, science will explain it."
I, for one, can't be satisfied with such a vague answer.

Religion doesn't do much better in my opinion. While the core duty of any religion is to reconnect the individual with the Divine, the unfortunate reality is that it often creates more division than unity. Dogma, empty rituals, superficial understanding....are all distractions.


 

[brianthainess]

5 minutes ago, xylophone said:

 

Not to mention how the  different species of penguins from Antarctica managed to walk all that way to hitch a lift!! Maybe it really is a fairy tale???????????? 

They were OK as were all the fish they just ignored the whole thing and kept swimming around, very happy in their new found giant sea. Then 'he' came along again and took away 25% of their new space.

Yes tiddles I'm talking about fish, don't get so exited. He's just checking the facts now. 

 

 

[Red Phoenix]

41 minutes ago, Sunmaster said:

Just to clarify something for our anti-religious friends here. 
We are not trying to promote religion over materialism. Both are just belief systems. Both are imperfect and incomplete because they have to use language to exist. They are both just very loose interpretations of what they are trying to describe. Both are just wave-constructs, impermanent thought-forms that cannot be taken as the ultimate answer to what the ocean is. There is no judgement. The ocean doesn't think one wave is better than the other, right? It's not an 'either-or' argument....from the perspective of the ocean, both have their validity.

What we are trying to understand is "Is there an ocean beneath the waves?" and "How do I know/experience this ocean?". 
These questions go beyond religion and materialism. They are intimate questions that are at the very core of our existence. 

If you think that subscribing to the materialistic view will answer these questions, fine. I'd like to know how.
If others believe that endorsing one or the other religion can answer them, fine too. Again, I'd like to know how. 

How well a belief system can answer the above questions determines its usefulness. 
Materialism, by its own definition, only cares about the material world. It has no answers to the subjective inner world question of "Who am I?". Materialism proposes the idea that consciousness is a byproduct of the brain (nothing more than a theory), but anything beyond that is either ignored or brushed off with a promise that "sometime in the future, science will explain it."
I, for one, can't be satisfied with such a vague answer.

Religion doesn't do much better in my opinion. While the core duty of any religion is to reconnect the individual with the Divine, the unfortunate reality is that it often creates more division than unity. Dogma, empty rituals, superficial understanding....are all distractions.

~

A very sensible post/response by @Sunmaster going against the tide from the wave of nonsense disguised as humor currently flooding this thread... 

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

~

A very sensible post/response by @Sunmaster going against the tide from the wave of nonsense disguised as humor currently flooding this thread... 

True.  Yet I can't blame @brianthainess, @xylophone & @VincentRJ too much.  Some of the biblical stories are, to put it mildly, far out when taken literally.  And a lot of Christians do take them literally.  I could see myself joining in on the ridicule as there's much that I think is nonsense about religion.  But I don't because I understand everyone has assumed their own challenges in life and therefore not everyone is meant to be in agreement on everything.  So I allow respect.  What anyone else believes is no skin off my ar$e.

 

I've always felt that science was a response by those who couldn't accept the fantastic religious tales in strictly literal terms and also saw the many contradictions within religion and so searched for answers elsewhere.  Elsewhere being the material world since the subjective world of religion made no rhyme nor reason in large part nor was it dependable in their eyes.  Science looked for validation of the world through physical proofs which were repeatable.  If religion is at one extreme then science compensated by going to the other extreme.  Though subjective reality is undeniable it was nonetheless discarded entirely due to it's strong basis within religion.  A new religion based on pure reason and zero faith could have no ties to the old religion.

 

Now I've rejected religion for at least the two reasons I gave above but I also rejected science for similar reasons.  As religion didn't provide the answers, and science didn't either, then I continued looking for answers elsewhere.  Fortunately - at least to me - I did have a good idea of what I was looking for.  Certainly the essence of it.  And I have been convinced since I was a young child that there was an answer to every question.  I haven't been disappointed.  Not to say I've already found all of the answers to all of my questions.    I do recognise that that is an eternal process.

 

No one has all of the answers.  Not any one individual, not any religion, and not science.  Given that then I'd say these three amigos should at least show a bit of humility as they are no more 'advanced'  or 'enlightened' than the rest of us.  But when science becomes your God and truth then, yeah, you could end up with a bloated head and believe you're walking on clouds. 

 

What say you guys?  Any serious comments to the above or just more horseplay?  Yer choice.  Either way is fine with me.  Similarly, no skin off my ar$e. 

[brianthainess]

Just to say I think most people who believe in God, were brought up in a family who did the same,

My Parents were not religious, they were to busy bringing up a family of 3 kids to bother with that, just after the 2WW they had both lived in London, and were witness to death all around them, although we were brought up with "Christian Values" religion was never ever talked about, my father never drunk nor my mother nor did she ever smoke, she died of cancer aged 59 when I was 27. 

[Mark Nothing]

A good way to experience God's power is to use his products to enhance your life.  Living water is a panacea that will return your body to perfect health and turn on the connection to God' spirit in your soul.

 

If you knew the gift of God you would have asked, "Give me a drink", and he would have given you living water.  John 4:10.

 

Living water will cleanse you of your impurities and all your false idols.  It will put a new spirit in your soul and it will take the heart of stone out of your flesh.  Ezekial 36 : 25-27.

 

Living water 5 years now.  Outstanding results.  The inorganic minerals clogging up my body with gout, arthritus, prostate problems, stiff joints all dissappeared.  God knows what he is doing.

 

The Bible is full of stories showing the punishment of those who pursue false idols.  And it got me thinking that lots of people appear to worship hospitals and pharmaceuticals instead of God.  Their punishment is the side affects, costly insurance, never ending treatments.  The miracle of Living water has no side affects and has worked on every one of my issues.  

 

It is God's gift to those who desire it.

 

 

[Tippaporn]

2 minutes ago, Mark Nothing said:

A good way to experience God's power is to use his products to enhance your life.  Living water is a panacea that will return your body to perfect health and turn on the connection to God' spirit in your soul.

 

If you knew the gift of God you would have asked, "Give me a drink", and he would have given you living water.  John 4:10.

 

Living water will cleanse you of your impurities and all your false idols.  It will put a new spirit in your soul and it will take the heart of stone out of your flesh.  Ezekial 36 : 25-27.

 

Living water 5 years now.  Outstanding results.  The inorganic minerals clogging up my body with gout, arthritus, prostate problems, stiff joints all dissappeared.  God knows what he is doing.

 

The Bible is full of stories showing the punishment of those who pursue false idols.  And it got me thinking that lots of people appear to worship hospitals and pharmaceuticals instead of God.  Their punishment is the side affects, costly insurance, never ending treatments.  The miracle of Living water has no side affects and has worked on every one of my issues.  

 

It is God's gift to those who desire it.

 

 

 

You can't argue with successful results. 

[Sunmaster]

43 minutes ago, Mark Nothing said:

A good way to experience God's power is to use his products to enhance your life.  Living water is a panacea that will return your body to perfect health and turn on the connection to God' spirit in your soul.

 

If you knew the gift of God you would have asked, "Give me a drink", and he would have given you living water.  John 4:10.

 

Living water will cleanse you of your impurities and all your false idols.  It will put a new spirit in your soul and it will take the heart of stone out of your flesh.  Ezekial 36 : 25-27.

 

Living water 5 years now.  Outstanding results.  The inorganic minerals clogging up my body with gout, arthritus, prostate problems, stiff joints all dissappeared.  God knows what he is doing.

 

The Bible is full of stories showing the punishment of those who pursue false idols.  And it got me thinking that lots of people appear to worship hospitals and pharmaceuticals instead of God.  Their punishment is the side affects, costly insurance, never ending treatments.  The miracle of Living water has no side affects and has worked on every one of my issues.  

 

It is God's gift to those who desire it.

 

 

Sorry, what is living water?

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

Sorry, what is living water?

 

H2O?

[VincentRJ]

1 hour ago, Sunmaster said:

Sorry, what is living water?

 

Water which is full of life, such as bacteria and microscopic organisms.  

[VincentRJ]

Sorry! I was being sarcastic. A Google search revealed the following:

 

"Exceptional purity from pristine wilderness artesian water with a balance of minerals filtered through the best system that exists. Uncontaminated Nature."

 

https://gtglivingwater.com.au/

[thaibeachlovers]

16 hours ago, Tippaporn said:

 

Why not read the posts?  No harm to it.  But there's great potential, too.

 

Your opinion is just one belief that you picked up on your travels through life and never again bothered to question as to whether it's true or not.  You must have had experience in life where you picked up a belief, examined it and found it not to be true, and dropped it.  No one is without such experience.

 

Could it be possible your idea of the ego isn't true?  Reading the posts would at least give you the opportunity to question your belief and if you found what is written to be true then you could divest yourself of an unhealthy belief.  Why not take advantage of it?

That post is exactly the right length- long enough to get a point across, but not long enough to make my eyes glaze over.

Seriously, of course my opinion is just that, an opinion. It may be right or wrong, but it's mine and no one else's.

 

I've had loads of opinions that changed over time eg my opinion that women were "special". That changed soon as I'd worked with enough to know that they are no more special than men are. I do have the advantage over most men though, in that over decades I got to know many quite well, hundreds really well and thousands not so well. Nursing, not being an occupation most men aspire to, allows those of us who do it a look at women in a way that very few men on the planet will ever do. I was quite awed by women before I went nursing- LOL. That was so long ago. If I could go back in time, I'd give myself a good slapping.

 

Can my idea of the ego be wrong? Of course. I'm wrong on so many things that something like the ego, which is incredibly complicated anyway, could be interpreted in so many different ways. In the end, I describe it in a way I'm comfortable with.

 

Reading the posts would at least give you the opportunity to question your belief and if you found what is written to be true then you could divest yourself of an unhealthy belief.  Why not take advantage of it?

 

Had you asked me that in my late 30s I'd have been all in. I read everything I could about psychology, life, spiritualism etc that I could lay my hands on ( it was after my Damascus moment ).

I loved "The Road Less Traveled", and many books along similar lines.

 

A discussion such as you and Sunmaster are having would have been part and parcel of my life.

However, I got old, old and tired.

 

To be frank, I'm just filling in time till the exit- God's waiting room, some call it. If I can just get through a day without a catastrophe that's a win for me. So, I don't really want to think too hard about anything anymore. I'll be getting the answers to life, the universe and everything first hand, so to speak, soon enough.

 

I'm not saying that I'm not open to new ideas, but I'm not going looking for them anymore.

Having said that, this thread was brilliant. I was educated in many ways about spirituality, but when it comes to Seth etc, that's more than I want to deal with- I'd have to think too much.

 

 

 

 

[Tippaporn]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

That post is exactly the right length- long enough to get a point across, but not long enough to make my eyes glaze over.

 

And it was purposely kept short as you've mentioned multiple times in the past your aversion to long posts.  Very perceptive there, TBL. 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

9 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

Sorry! I was being sarcastic. A Google search revealed the following:

 

"Exceptional purity from pristine wilderness artesian water with a balance of minerals filtered through the best system that exists. Uncontaminated Nature."

 

https://gtglivingwater.com.au/

My google search found this. He is a christian after all. 

 

Later in John 7: 37-39 Jesus once again speaks of living water, saying, “'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. ' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

 

 

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Seriously, of course my opinion is just that, an opinion. It may be right or wrong, but it's mine and no one else's.

 

That brings to minds something very similar that my ex-wife used to say to me during some of our arguments.  She would act like a total bitch and when I would protest her unbecoming behaviour by forcing her to face it directly she would retort, with the greatest indignation, of course, "Yeah, well that's me!!  I am who I am and if you don't like you can go [well, you know]!!"

 

Though she was inescapably confronted with her poor ideas she chose to retain them despite having full awareness that they were ideas which were NOT beneficial to her.  In such cases there's naught for me to do but leave folks to themselves and allow them to work out their miseries by themselves and chose their own timing for finally resolving them.

[Tippaporn]

3 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

My google search found this. He is a christian after all. 

 

Later in John 7: 37-39 Jesus once again speaks of living water, saying, “'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. ' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.

 

'Living water' was allegory, then.  Thanks for the fuller context. 

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I've had loads of opinions that changed over time eg my opinion that women were "special". That changed soon as I'd worked with enough to know that they are no more special than men are.

 

Now it's one thing to have erroneously placed women above men by considering them 'special', meaning better than, and to have come to the realisation that it's simply not so.  It's quite another, though, to then feel taken in and become bitter about it.  I'm not saying you're bitter about women, TBL, but are you?  If yes then that would indicate your view of women would have gone from one extreme to the opposite extreme.  Which would be just as erroneous as your initial opinion of women.

 

In truth there are female aspects present within men and male aspects present within women.  Which aspects predominant depend largely on one's biology.  The gay culture of course shows that men can allow the female aspects to dominate and women can allow the male aspects to dominate.  Creativity knows no bounds.

 

The point being that neither aspect is better than the other.  They are simply different.  Each offers something the other does not.  They are not equal in the sense that they are same.  But they are equal in the senses that one is not better than the other.

 

[Tippaporn]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Can my idea of the ego be wrong? Of course. I'm wrong on so many things that something like the ego, which is incredibly complicated anyway, could be interpreted in so many different ways. In the end, I describe it in a way I'm comfortable with.

 

Nothing 'wrong' there, TBL.    You're satisfied for the time being of holding onto to an idea which, admittedly, may be wrong but seems not to produce any deleterious effects that you can point to.  So no harm done, right?

 

I would, however, bring awareness to the no "deleterious effects that you can point to" portion of the statement.  It should be understood that every idea produces a result.  Beneficial ideas produce beneficial results and poor ideas produce poor results.  What makes this game of life so frustrating at times is that one cannot always connect the dots between the ideas and the results that they produce.  If, though, one does understand that every idea produces a result then despite the fact that connecting the dots between the idea and it's product seems elusive one can at least distinguish between a good idea and a poor one.  And once an idea is understood as a poor one then simply dispense with it.  It isn't particularly necessary to go through the process of identifying the specific results.

 

If folks were to be able to connect the dots more easily then I would guarantee that people would be much more discriminating as to the ideas they accept.  There would be some major mental housecleaning going on. 

[Tippaporn]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Reading the posts would at least give you the opportunity to question your belief and if you found what is written to be true then you could divest yourself of an unhealthy belief.  Why not take advantage of it?

 

Had you asked me that in my late 30s I'd have been all in. I read everything I could about psychology, life, spiritualism etc that I could lay my hands on ( it was after my Damascus moment ).

I loved "The Road Less Traveled", and many books along similar lines.

 

A discussion such as you and Sunmaster are having would have been part and parcel of my life.

 

And now the money quote . . .

 

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

However, I got old, old and tired.

 

Now there's a very poor idea which you hold and with this one it's quite easy to connect the dots.  It's an idea which, forgive me for my honesty, prevents you from achieving much that you desire to achieve in your life, and you could well achieve yet, despite your advanced years.  But as you say, you've gotten "old, old and tired."  It's a poor idea which is, again forgive me for my honesty, nothing more than an excuse.  If you doubt my honesty then the proof lies everywhere and any time you see an example of an aged man with great vigor still actively pursuing his dreams.  They do not use your idea, and similar, as an excuse.  Rather, they hold those specific ideas which allow them their vigor to never stop fulfilling their dreams.

 

You simply have vigor that you refuse to acknowledge.  It's up to you to sift through the ideas you hold in your mind to ferret out the ones responsible.  No one can do that work for you.  You can face it or you can shrink away.  There's always another "time."

 

In a paradoxical way either choice is good.