Search found 185 matches

by zoofence
November 26th, 2007, 7:02 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: To be lived by it
Replies: 11
Views: 22590

To be lived by it

The end of October, TZF’s weekly thought feature was a quotation from Lao Tsu that asked “How can the Divine Oneness be seen?” and answered, “If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere”. I love that line, “If you are willing to be lived by it”! Not to live it, but to be lived b...
by zoofence
November 6th, 2007, 3:03 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Right on, UG!
Replies: 6
Views: 18951

I am constantly astounded how desperately determined we are, the lengths we will go to, to fashion a theology that fits and justifies our belief of existence as other than One. In Islam, one of the names of Allah is Al-Qayyum, the Ever Self-Existing One. The book The Most Beautiful Names , says of ...
by zoofence
November 2nd, 2007, 3:55 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Put Out That Fire
Replies: 16
Views: 39301

Ah yes, pantheism. As you might imagine, TZF gets an accusatory letter about that every so often. The Random House dictionary definition of pantheism reads more or less: Pantheism is the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe (including us) is only a manifestati...
by zoofence
November 1st, 2007, 8:17 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: In the Beginning
Replies: 5
Views: 12431

Thank you all for such nice words! I truly am grateful that ITB has spoken to you so clearly, and that you have said so. While I am delighted to accept your applause (there remains a lot of life left in this graying ego), please remember that it is your own awareness that enables you to see and get ...
by zoofence
October 30th, 2007, 3:58 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Put Out That Fire
Replies: 16
Views: 39301

I agree, it is a good essay, and nicely put. Art, I am not sure I understand your reference to Christian Scientists "attempting to live in tomorrow while it is yet today". To be sure, many religions, particularly messianic and apocalyptic religions, seem sometimes to be focused more on the...
by zoofence
October 27th, 2007, 3:57 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Put Out That Fire
Replies: 16
Views: 39301

Neo wrote, "Think of it as a zen koan". That's exactly right, a koan . And isn’t that sometimes the nature of riddles, anyway? They don’t quite make sense because they are not supposed to make sense, exactly. They are supposed to stump or stretch the brain, even transcend it. That’s what m...
by zoofence
October 23rd, 2007, 1:30 pm
Forum: Green Fields
Topic: Is There A God?
Replies: 2
Views: 13785

Is There A God?

I have posted at TZF’s Ampers&nd a very nice essay called to our attention by Open Forum’s own ihavesayso. The writer, a professor at the University of California, is a libertarian, which, briefly stated, is a doctrine or belief system based upon free will and individual freedom – personal, poli...
by zoofence
October 19th, 2007, 7:43 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Messages in Movies
Replies: 5
Views: 16579

Interesting points. And thanks for the recommendations. They sound good. I will look for them. I confess that I like movies. Nancy and I watch movies often. Always at home by VCR or DVD, not in theaters. And I – we – like a wide variety of movies. Here are a few we have watched several times, and pr...
by zoofence
October 19th, 2007, 12:21 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Put Out That Fire
Replies: 16
Views: 39301

If God is infinite, who are you? Good question, the very question that was once posed to me, and which I eventually called The Sacred Riddle . As for your post, it makes a lot of sense to me, and is well put. Your use of the expression “tribal god” is quite right. As Anna has written somewhere on O...
by zoofence
October 18th, 2007, 9:04 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: My question
Replies: 22
Views: 41867

windabove, Nice to see your name again! We regard the realness of objects/others as being outside our self, instead of as symbols of and within our self. Too true. But here's the question: If our Divinely Inspired Function (raison d'etre) is to experience a sensate life, then we "regard the rea...
by zoofence
October 8th, 2007, 2:45 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Right on, UG!
Replies: 6
Views: 18951

Consider this. Last evening, Nancy and I watched the movie Field of Dreams in which Kevin Costner, an Iowa farmer, is moved by “a voice” to build a baseball field in his corn field. Among the events that occur when he does so, is Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the Chicago Black Sox players banned from...
by zoofence
October 7th, 2007, 7:48 pm
Forum: The Sand Box
Topic: Right on, UG!
Replies: 6
Views: 18951

Anna wrote I suddenly realized, in bald clarity, that ALL desire, no matter how glamorous, how justifiable, how acceptable, how encouraged, how NOT encouraged, is simply, and only, a re-directed survival instinct. This is so obvious to me that I cannot understand why I did not see it before. If one ...
by zoofence
September 30th, 2007, 3:32 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Ashes to ashes?
Replies: 18
Views: 35163

Okay, I asked: How do I know that I (never mind I who?) did not just this instant create “Stefan”, which phenomenon includes “Stefan’s memory”, so that as Stefan sits here at the keyboard, for all the world it seems to “me” that “I” have been “alive” for decades, when in Fact “Stefan” has been “here...
by zoofence
September 27th, 2007, 8:49 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Ashes to ashes?
Replies: 18
Views: 35163

A quick afterthought – Nancy and I were talking a few minutes ago about the general subject addressed here, and she reminded me that the ego’s perspective (that is, the perspective of “me”) is a mirror image of what actually IS. So, whenever the answer to the question "Who’s asking?" which...
by zoofence
September 27th, 2007, 3:38 pm
Forum: General Discussion
Topic: Ashes to ashes?
Replies: 18
Views: 35163

This is great stuff. These are the kinds of issues that the spiritual path is paved with. If I am understanding correctly, part of, or one aspect of, what we are asking here is the question, Is what I call “my life” all there is to “the world”? Or, to turn jenjulian’s statement into a question, “Is ...