Can man raise himself to the stature of God?

[blazeofglory]

In fact man prays, worships God to raise himself to the stature of God.

Man seeking God is just seeking his extended or universal form. Man is a microcosm in appearance. But in reality he is the macrocosm. Or the cosmos.

Man can rise to a height to be God. And not Nietzsche's superman.

And man is God, for ,man is the external extension or manifestation of God.

[Pendragon]

Blaze, I respect you greatly, but I think you need to find yourself a hobby or something. These arguments are useless...

[AimusSage]

I always like to think that god is a mere part of what makes a man. So we're all beyond god in that sense.

A lot of people can do without god too. Although those that can't do without would argue against such nonsense. Either way, it doesn't matter, god is what god is. For most that means something completely different from their neighbour.

[Wintermute]

Assuming we don't destroy ourselves as we go through the greedy stage we're in now, yes, I think so. Once our medical science has made us eternal, and physics finds a source of unlimited free energy then we will be well on our way. It may take 10,000 years or so...shoot maybe 100,000 years but yes we can. And, to realize that there are trillions of star systems in the universe that are hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years older than our own is humbling for me anyway--who can be certain? I sure can't.

Certainty is boring.

Cheers,
Doug

[Wintermute]

Blaze, I respect you greatly, but I think you need to find yourself a hobby or something. These arguments are useless...

Hehe, Hi Dale,

I'd like to suggest scuba diving to Blaze. My wife and I have just begun our under water explorations and my goodness how beautiful it is down there!

Yours,
Doug

[JBI]

Thanks Pastor Blaze, very...

[NikolaiI]

In fact man prays, worships God to raise himself to the stature of God.

Man seeking God is just seeking his extended or universal form. Man is a microcosm in appearance. But in reality he is the macrocosm. Or the cosmos.

Man can rise to a height to be God. And not Nietzsche's superman.

And man is God, for ,man is the external extension or manifestation of God.

I do agree with parts of this.

What I believe Blaze is that we are part of the original Purusha, we are part of the Over-Soul. But the Over-Soul scattered and now we are not cognizant of being part of the Over-Soul. Our true identity is union with the infinite One. This seems too big of a claim. Part of the infinite. But the original Purusha, the Over-Soul, is nothing less than that, infinite.

Another way of looking at it is to understand that we are all in the Over-Soul, and the Over-Soul is within us - within our heart, observing, always.

People sometimes say, "What is the nature of Human? What are humans, Human this, Human that..."

But this is an interesting thing, Human. We aren't human - unless human is considered part of the eternally changing reality which is the cosmos. We are part and parcel of the cosmos and nothing separate or different.

When I am outside of my home, in nature, and observing. There are plants, trees, grass, air, sky, clouds, and sun which are all visible to me. Now, these are not separate from me, nor am I from them. I am part of the trees, part of the gress, part of everything. So if I think that I am separate, then that is merely illusion.

I agree with what you said about we are the cosmos. In Buddhism it's said that the nature of all phenomena is self-lessness, or emptiness. To quote Jack Kerouac, "And you have been forever, and will be forever, and all the worrisome smashings of your foot on innocent cupboard doors it was only the Void pretending to be a man pretending not to know the Void--"

There is Hindu saint, Ramana Maharshi, who is widely respected; one thing which he said was that "When the world appears, the self vanishes, and when the self appears, the world vanishes."

There is often the question of, how can there be a benevolent God if there is suffering? To me this is similar to asking, how can there exist silence, in a crowded and noisy room. There exists silence far away from this crowded, noisy room, in a wood or by a brook. The silence is there, in fact the silence is necessary for any sound. Silence is the foundation for noise. Similarly God is the foundation for all our affairs.

As to us being the cosmos; R.W. Emerson said something beautiful about the soul, he said.... a rather long quote, but meaningful,

"All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie, — an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. A man is the fasade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend."

Plato also wrote, in a part of one of his books, something called the Allegory of the Cave. In it he explains about prisoners who are locked in a cave. They are chained, they cannot move, and they cannot turn their heads. Their focus is directed toward the back of the cave. And behind them, people they cannot see or are aware of, make puppets which create shadows on the wall. The prisoners can only see these shadows, the cannot see each other or themselves, nor the people behind them, nor the sun which is casting these shadows. The sun can be compared to the soul, to the cosmos, to the true nature of who we are. The shadows can be compared with all forms which we see, which we think act a certain way, limited, inflexible, isolated from each other. Plato writes, when the prisoner is able to break free of his chains and turn and climb out of the cave, it is the same as climbing out of ignorance. When he at first sees the light of the sun it is too brilliant, and he cannot see, but his eyes get used to the light. There is a whole world for him outside his cave, which he was meant for, his eyes meant to see. Then, the person who has seen this light; what joy would there be to go back into the cave, and try to discern shadows on the wall? It would be unbearable, because he has had the joy of seeing the light of the sun. Furthermore, he would not be able to discern the shadows as well, because his eyes would not be accustomed to the dark. This would make him appear less adept than his fellows, who would mock him. Then of course also, they would not be able to understand if he tried to tell them that everything they thought was real was false.

So I agree with you that we are the cosmos. Sheerly vast, we do not realize. We do not see that the nature of all these forms is emptiness, we do not see the light, which as Emerson wrote, is all. But in truth, climbing out of ignorance is the way to freedom, it is the way to not being controled by karma. It is the way to union with God.

What I mean to say is that we are the cosmos, and the play and drama of life based on the body-ego is false, in the sense that we do it ignorant of our true nature. In reality, it is all simply play, and no one is ever truly hurt, because the soul is not hurt. The soul shines, showing that our true nature is divine, immortal, blissful, and full of knowledge. Being full of knowledge, we're not attached to the forms of material life, knowing them to be empty.

Furthermore, when we act based on desires - desire is something against the natural harmony of things, anyway, as it indicates something incomplete - then we are reinforcing our ideology of forms, and of being separate, being empty, and incomplete. Fundamentally, when we act based on sense-desire, every action produces a karmic reaction, a karmic effect. If we don't identify how we have acted, and what kind of effect it produces, then we can't hope to escape it. But if we can understand the reality of our nature, the cosmic or divine nature, and act in full wisdom and knowledge, then we don't produce karmic reactions, but rather our actions serve to sever our bonds. Knowledge is something deeper than desire because desire is against the natural harmony, desire leaves us always feeling incomplete, while if we've attained knowledge, we are aware of a much, much greater completeness and fulfilment.

[weltanschauung]

These arguments are useless...

agreed, but not because the arguments arent true, but because people dont understand it.
matthew 7; 6-8?
yup.



3. Every man and every woman is a star.
4. Every number is infinite; there is no difference.

[bazarov]

When last man tried to raise himself on stature of God, more then 50 millions died.

[NikolaiI]

When last man tried to raise himself on stature of God, more then 50 millions died.

Point taken... which is why I don't phrase things exactly the same way Blaze has. I'm not a mayavadi after all, lol. But our nature is the same as the nature of God. We are qualitatively the same, just as a drop in the ocean is qualitatively the same as the whole ocean, or a particle of gold is chemically the same as the bar.

Further, in my own view of things, what Blaze is saying is that we are like actors on the stage, but we are no more our roles we are acting, than we are the coats we wear, or the car we drive. And in fact all of it is simply this, a play, when in fact, we are the cosmos itself as eternal, as peaceful, as expansive, etc., and we are only pretending to be involved in material activities... the soul is the background which shines through us, showing the rest to be temporary and illusory.

Further, we are scattered parts of the Over-Soul, or the original Purusha.

[jon1jt]

In fact man prays, worships God to raise himself to the stature of God.

Man seeking God is just seeking his extended or universal form. Man is a microcosm in appearance. But in reality he is the macrocosm. Or the cosmos.

Man can rise to a height to be God. And not Nietzsche's superman.

And man is God, for ,man is the external extension or manifestation of God.

I'm not sure why you believe Nietzsche's superman is not necessarily nature's (god's) manifestation? Microcosm, appearance, reality, macrocosm, cosmos God. Philosophy 101 teaches students to be very very careful throwing around words like this that have about as much meaning as a sneeze.