Afterthoughts on Recent God Post
The recent discussion around religion, God, spirituality and Rational Philosophy was extraordinarily thought-provoking for me. Thank you to all who participated.
I have given much thought over the last 25 years to reconciling the meaningful and practical spiritality I choose to make of central importance in my life with my deep grounding in Objectivism and related thought.
Inspired by the recent discussion I have made and attempt to streamline and essentialize the framework I have come to (as of today...ever-evolving).
I want to share it here, and humbly request response, feedback, support and challenge. I believe it contains some good quality thinking. You tell me:
GOD
At any rate, how to streamline and essentialize this...? Ok, I define God as capital R Reality, as a whole in it largest all-inclusive sense. All-that-is. Not each part, process and subset thereof, but EVERY part, process and subset thereof, taken as the single fundamental greatest Unity.
In my spiritual practices (everything I do to build, maintain and grow my relationship with God = my spirituality), I consider 2 aspects of God.
One is what I call Presence, which is the very quality of Beingness which pervades and is shared by Everything That Exists. Through meditation and prayer (not in the traditional sense of that word) and other spiritual practices, I can feel and connect to that infinite reservoir of power and energy to recharge and turbo charge myself to rise above and perform beyond my own finite store of power and energy.
The second aspect is Grace or Spirit or Flow, as you will. This is the intricate field of interlocking beginningless and endless causual connections - The Way of Things. This is where I seek guidance, data and direction beyond my finite store of knowledge and understanding and my limited capacity for wisdom, insight, forsight, intuition and creativity. It is the realm of everything that I don't know that I don't know. It is where what I need to know - when I need to know it, to live at my peak performance and direct
my actions and my life optimally - unfolds as I need to know it in every next Emerging Reality. (My job is to pay attention [LOVE that phrase!], let go of the best-guess snapshot in my head of how reality should be, and continually integrate that data into my ever evolving strategies and next steps.
I have given much thought over the last 25 years to reconciling the meaningful and practical spiritality I choose to make of central importance in my life with my deep grounding in Objectivism and related thought.
Inspired by the recent discussion I have made and attempt to streamline and essentialize the framework I have come to (as of today...ever-evolving).
I want to share it here, and humbly request response, feedback, support and challenge. I believe it contains some good quality thinking. You tell me:
GOD
At any rate, how to streamline and essentialize this...? Ok, I define God as capital R Reality, as a whole in it largest all-inclusive sense. All-that-is. Not each part, process and subset thereof, but EVERY part, process and subset thereof, taken as the single fundamental greatest Unity.
In my spiritual practices (everything I do to build, maintain and grow my relationship with God = my spirituality), I consider 2 aspects of God.
One is what I call Presence, which is the very quality of Beingness which pervades and is shared by Everything That Exists. Through meditation and prayer (not in the traditional sense of that word) and other spiritual practices, I can feel and connect to that infinite reservoir of power and energy to recharge and turbo charge myself to rise above and perform beyond my own finite store of power and energy.
The second aspect is Grace or Spirit or Flow, as you will. This is the intricate field of interlocking beginningless and endless causual connections - The Way of Things. This is where I seek guidance, data and direction beyond my finite store of knowledge and understanding and my limited capacity for wisdom, insight, forsight, intuition and creativity. It is the realm of everything that I don't know that I don't know. It is where what I need to know - when I need to know it, to live at my peak performance and direct
my actions and my life optimally - unfolds as I need to know it in every next Emerging Reality. (My job is to pay attention [LOVE that phrase!], let go of the best-guess snapshot in my head of how reality should be, and continually integrate that data into my ever evolving strategies and next steps.
