{"id":9471,"date":"2017-09-13T11:34:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T15:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=9471"},"modified":"2017-09-13T11:43:01","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T15:43:01","slug":"what-do-you-thinki-believe-that-we-are-allspiritual-beings-with-a-physical-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/?p=9471","title":{"rendered":"What do you think?
I BELIEVE THAT WE ARE ALL SPIRITUAL
BEINGS WITH A PHYSICAL BODY"},"content":{"rendered":"

I promised in my last entry here to offer my own answer to the question I posed about whether we are all chemical creatures or spiritual beings. I am aware that I have offered my response before, in writing and in several locations. I nevertheless encore that response here, for any who may have missed it.<\/p>\n

I have — as you all know — no need for anyone to agree with me on this subject. I don’t offer this writing to convince, but merely to inform. I have absolutely zero need to convert anyone to my way of thinking, but I presume people have come to this website to find out more about what my way of thinking is, and I am happy to offer my views on spiritual matters, as the Conversations with God books seem to have generated some particular interest among some particular people. So, here goes…<\/p>\n

My own answer to the question of True Identity: Chemical Creature or Spiritual Being? —\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve decided that I am a spiritual being, a three-part being made up of body, mind, and soul. Each part of my tri-part being has a function and a purpose. As I come to understand each of those functions, each aspect of me begins to more efficiently serve its purpose in my life.<\/p>\n

I am an Individuation of Divinity, an expression of God, a singularization of the singularity. There is no separation between me and God, nor is there any difference, except as to proportion. Put simply, God and I are one.<\/p>\n

This brings up an interesting question. Am I rightly accused of heresy? Are people who believe that they are divine nothing but raving lunatics? Are they, worse yet, apostates?<\/p>\n

I wondered. So I did a little research. I wanted to find out what religious and spiritual sources had to say on the subject. Here\u2019s some of what I found . . . .<\/p>\n

Isaiah 41:23\u2014Shew the things that are to come hereaf\u00adter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold together.<\/em><\/p>\n

Psalm 82:6\u2014I have said, \u2018Gods ye are, And sons of the Most High\u2014all of you.<\/em><\/p>\n

John 10:34\u2014Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, \u201cI said, Ye are gods?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Indian philosopher Adi Shankara (788 CE \u2013 820 CE), the one largely responsible for the initial expounding and consolidation of Advaita Vedanta, wrote in his famous work,\u00a0Vivekachudamani<\/em>:\u00a0\u201cBrahman is the only Truth, the spatio-temporal world is an illusion, and there is ultimately Brahman and individual self.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Sri Swami Krishnananda Saraswati Maharaj (April 25, 1922 \u2013 November 23, 2001), a Hindu saint: \u201cGod exists; there is only one God; the essence of man is God.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Buddhism there ultimately is no such thing as a Self that is independent from the rest of the universe (the doctrine of\u00a0anatta<\/em>). Also, if I understand certain Buddhist schools of thought correctly, humans return to the earth in subsequent lifetimes in one of six forms, the last of which are called Devas . . . which is variously translated as\u00a0Gods<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Deities.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese discipline of Taoism speaks of embodiment and pragmatism, engaging practice to\u00a0actualize the Natural Order within themselves.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Taoists believe that man is a microcosm for the universe.<\/p>\n

Hermeticism is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs or gnosis based primarily upon the Hellenistic Egyptian pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Hermeticism teaches that there is a transcendent God, The All, or one \u201cCause,\u201d of which we, and the entire universe, participate.<\/p>\n

The concept was first laid out in\u00a0The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus<\/em>, in the famous words:\u00a0\u201cThat which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And in Sufism, an esoteric form of Islam, the teaching,\u00a0There is no God but God<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>was long ago changed to,\u00a0There is nothing but God.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Which would make me . . . well . . .\u00a0God.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you have some further interest in these kinds of things, you will find it fascinating to read\u00a0the\u00a0remarkable books of Huston Smith<\/a>, a globally honored professor of religion. Among titles of his that I most often recommend:\u00a0The World\u2019s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(1958, revised edition 1991, HarperOne), and\u00a0Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World\u2019s Religions<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>(1976, reprint edition 1992, HarperOne).<\/p>\n

So . . . that is my response to the invitation that life is presenting me, and all of us, regarding the making of a choice about Who I Am. I believe myself to be an out-picturing of The Divine. As, I believe, are we all.<\/p>\n

To reiterate my comments at the outset here, I have no need for anyone to agree with me on this. I don’t have a shred of evidence to prove or back up my belief. It is one of many beliefs I hold for which I have no supporting scientific data.<\/p>\n

I believe, for instance, that my wife loves me, and without condition. I believe that my dog understands what I am “saying” to him when I simply look deeply into his eyes and he looks into mine. He inevitably responds as if we had shared words that he completely comprehends.<\/p>\n

I believe that Good always comes to me in the end, however circuitous its route on occasion has been or\u00a0may be. I believe in the “power of positive thinking” — and it has evidenced\u00a0itself to me since I was a child. I believe that plants that are loved grow bigger, better, and faster than plants that are not actively “spoken to” or\u00a0sent loving energies.<\/p>\n

I know that some of this sounds silly. And I can back up none of\u00a0this\u00a0with indisputable scientific data of any kind.<\/p>\n

It does not matter to me. I have enjoyed a rich and wondrous life. And I believe my beliefs have played an important part in making it so. I honor, with great respect, all those who\u00a0disagree about what I’ve written here regarding the True Identity of humans. They could be “right,” and I could be “wrong.” Their words could be truth and my words could be false. They could be accurate and I could be mistaken.<\/p>\n

I have been mistaken before. There was that time in 1958…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I promised in my last entry here to offer my own answer to the question I posed about whether we are all chemical creatures or spiritual beings. I am aware that I have offered my response before, in writing and in several locations. I nevertheless encore that response here, for any who may have missed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9471"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9477,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions\/9477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}