Do You Believe In the paranormal and Did you ever experience supernatural Phenomena?

[YesNo]

As I said before, I am no expert on Hinduism, but the dreaming deity sounds like Lord Vishnu, who dreams the universe while sleeping on the Cosmic Sea. Actually, I think he is lying on a snake on the Cosmic Sea, although where the snake, or the Cosmic Sea, or Lord Vishnu came from, I couldn't say.

I didn't know that Vishnu dreamed the universe, but I don't know much about Hinduism. I have read Sally Kempton's Awakening Shakti which gave me a perspective on the Hindu Goddesses.

There arises the question of we know that the Universal Mind is eternal and uncreated. As far as I can see that is a first principle, and a matter of faith.

Yes, one would have to assume the Mind sustaining the world is eternal.

Another question is whether this Mind actually created the material universe in the process of starting things up, or whether that was secondary (and inferior) to the creation of life/consciousness. My point about the problem of evil is that the material universe seems like an awfully flawed and nasty thing to expect from an all-good God. If it's really that bad, then maybe it is the product of a lesser agency, which set things in motion, warts and all. Perhaps it was created by a blind, selfish demiurge (as the Sethian gnostics believed), or by a big, dumb screw-up (as the Valentinian gnostics thought). Orthodox Christians (at least the ones who know their own theology), will tell you that o Christos made the material world. But when you consider what sort of a world that really is, it would make a lot more sense for them to say that o satan was the creator of matter and the God of Love and Justice was the author of life/consciousness--the existential predicament of our experience being that matter has imprisoned life, and the Sotorological significance being that life can be liberated. Or maybe there's another answer.

I tend to think the universe is not that bad and so don't mind having God's mind create it, but I am beginning to understand your gnostic dualism which seems based on the dualism of good and evil.

I agree with you about freedom; I believe that the Universal Mind is good (but the jury is still out for me on the material aspect of the Universe); and I have faith in the personal quality of God. 2.5 out of three. Maybe we are in the same pew after all.

After reading Lanza's account of time, I think one could derive from quantum physics either (a) there is no material substance or (b) time does not exist in the sense that we are creating the past as well as the future. One might not need to deny both of them. I prefer denying that material substance exists. That forces Mind to exist. However, if we are creating the past as we need to make the present consistent, then one doesn't need a Mind, but one is caught in solipsism.

Yes, and peeing on his fingers and writing graffiti. Only it's not God. It's the Buddha of the Western Heaven, depicted as wiser, holier, and more powerful than the Taoist/Animist "God," the Jade Emperor--whose ally he is. That strange arrangement comes from the Doctrine of the Three Ways, a traditional attempt to harmonize the materialism of Taoism/animism, the immaterialism of Buddhism, and ethics of Confucianism. It's an important aspect of later Chinese culture (including Chinese-American culture), but in terms of our discussion, it is a marriage of things that really don't belong together, at least for Taoism and Buddhism, at least for me.

But that doesn't effect my enjoyment of Journey to the West at all. The scene you mentioned comes at the end of Sun Wukong's war with Heaven, which I see as a metaphor for the human experience of growing up. Mao tried to use it as a symbol of his murderous Cultural Revolution. And others have pointed out similarities with the story of the revolt of Satan. But the author, in my opinion, was talking about something called "monkey mind," (in effect, immaturity, but it's so much better than that when Sun Wukong does it). Monkey mind is one of the phases or stumbling blocks that a Buddhist strives to overcome in the course of a lifetime. Ironically, that is why the character is funnier before his conversion to Buddhism than afterwards, at least in my opinion.

Well, Sun Wukong was a monkey. I didn't know that Mao used that scene to justify the Cultural Revolution. I don't see how it fits.

Oh well, I'm blithering again. I wrote you a piece of doggerel about freedom and evil in Paul's poetry thread. Monkey mind is still a problem for some of us.

Yes, I saw that and responded continuing the idea.

Bringing this all back to ghosts and other paranormal experiences, it seems that the existence of things like telepathy implies that there be some field of consciousness that carries the influence outward from the Mind as the source. This is not an electromagnetic or gravitational field but would explain the effect by using a similar action at a distance idea.