True "religion" -- becoming one with nature, not God

For many years, about thirty-five, I believed in pursuing a supernatural sort of oneness. Even wrote a book about how a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, Plotinus, taught it was possible to Return to the One.

That One was viewed as the ultimate source of this physical world, through creative intermediaries. Yet returning to what could loosely be called "God" required transcending materiality and leaving behind sensory awarenesses.

I still consider that such might be possible. Heck, anything is possible. But not everything is probable. 

These days I'm much more focused on becoming one with nature. Or more accurately, realizing that I'm already one with nature. Because what isn't part and parcel of nature, this physical universe? 

Here's some passages I liked from a book by theoretical physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, "The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew."

In the end, it is easier to explain why bees construct honeycombs shaped like perfect hexagons than why human beings place identical towers on the sides of the Taj Mahal or the two grandmothers on equal sides of the mother.

The first is the result of economy and mathematics, the second of psychology and aesthetics. Perhaps in asking why the pervasive symmetries in nature are found appealing to the human mind and imitated in our human-made constructions, we are making an erroneous distinction between our minds and the remainder of nature.

Perhaps we are all the same stuff.

After all, our minds are made of the same atoms and molecules as everything else in nature. The neurons in our brains obey the same physical laws as planets and snowflakes. 

Most important, our brains developed out of nature, out of hundreds of millions of years of sensory response to sunlight and sound and tactile connection to the world around our bodies. And the architecture of our brains was born from the same trial and error, the same energy principles, the same pure mathematics that happen in flowers and jellyfish and Higgs particles. 

Viewed in this way, our human aesthetic is necessarily the aesthetic of nature. Viewed in this way, it isn nonsensical to ask why we find nature beautiful. 

Beauty and symmetry and minimum principles are not qualities we ascribe to the cosmos and then marvel at in their perfection. They are simply what is, just like the particular arrangement of atoms that make up our minds.

We are not observers on the outside looking in. We are on the inside too.

Another perspective on this is Donald Crosby's "Religious Naturalism and It's Place in the Family of Religions." Thanks to Alex Szeto from Unitarian Universalists Hong Kong, UUHK, for letting me know about this essay.

After quickly reading the piece, I emailed Alex, "Great essay. I agree with almost everything in it. The word 'religious' usually turns me off, but I think Crosby is using the word as a substitute for 'what gives life meaning,' or something like that. The sense of awe at simply being alive and part of a marvelous, vast, mysterious universe."

Here's how Crosby's essay starts off:

Religious naturalism deserves recognition as an important form of religious faith among the various religious stances and outlooks of the world. It does so especially today, when its significance is coming to be increasingly acknowledged, vigorously developed, and actively propounded.

What is religious naturalism? Simply put, it is the recognition that to be is to be natural and the conviction that nature in all of its forms and manifestations is a proper focus of religious commitment.

When I say that to be is to be natural, I am exempting from reality anything other than nature, meaning that, for religious naturalism, there is no such thing as a supposed supernatural being, beings, regions, revelations, origins, purposes, destinies, and the like.

All of reality is natural, or, to state the matter negatively, nothing beyond, beneath, or above nature and its multifarious forms exists.

This does not mean that there can be no deeply fulfilling and saving religious faith, outlook, or devotion. It means that the appropriate source and object of such faith, outlook, and devotion can rightly be regarded as nature itself. 

Comments

[Turan]

It’s probably way past time we realised that everything about us humans is natural and that we are a part of nature as anything else in this universe. I suppose it’s our minds and the grandiose contents they contain that give us the feeling of being special and above nature. As a lifelong naturalist, this is how I view the matter:-

“Nature is just nature. It does not concern itself with being spiritual or material; so in fact, if we could see it as it is and not from a conceptual point of view, we can say it is spiritual and material. Reality does not divide, it can only encompass everything; it is everything. In this sense, everything is natural; everything – no matter how we divide it up – can be seen (not explained) as natural.

There only ever is One Reality, call it Nature or Life; it appears in many forms that come and go, exist and cease to exist, live and die, all sharing the One Reality.

So what are we always searching for? All we have to do is accept what we are and our search is over. Now that’s over we can get on with life; go for a walk, watch TV, play, work, buy food and clothing; shout at the cat, study some rocks – or the Upanishads - - - - - No, not there yet? Then meditate – watch the restless mind that searches for some sort of unnatural security - which does not exist.”

[cc]

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/96571-i-ve-begun-worshipping-the-sun-for-a-number-of-reasons

[observer]

Brian, seems like you are really working hard at convincing yourself that there is nothing after death. I can see how it takes a lot of pressure of oneself if we don't believe in Samsara anymore. Just being in the moment and one with nature. Thats cool, I'm a bit of an animist, but then I think there is a spiritual force that exists in all living beings.

No more returning to this world of suffering? After all, you're having a good life at the moment you can afford to be complacent and just hang out and have fun. But, what if we are in a wheel of karma, what will the next life bring, caught up in this matrix of suffering?

It seems people just want to be happy. What a useless, selfish attitude. Not caring about others, the wars and disease, suffering of humanity. No need to care, just wander around doing your own thing, enjoying life to the full.

But then, you don't know. After death it might be a huge wake up call and then thrown back into a life of suffering... and on and on and on. But hey people, enjoy your life while you can.

[Willie R.]

observer - we are ALL trying to convince ourselves that death is not really what it looks like, both literally and figuratively. It's called "survival". But death is precisely and exactly what it looks like. A dead organism has no concerns whatsoever, including whether there is some kind of experience that follows. A dead organism has no idea that it ever existed in the first place.
Trust me when I tell ya - you can only be alive. You can never be dead. This is not a riddle.

[Brian Hines]

observer, it doesn't take any work at all for me to accept that life ends with death. That's where 99.9% of the evidence points. What takes work is having faith in life after death, reincarnation, karma, and all that.

Where did you get the idea that people who don't believe in God or life after death are uncaring? Actually, they tend to be the most caring people, because they realize that this life, right here and now, is the only time and place they are able to make a difference.

Religious people, on the other hand, have one eye on their current life and one eye on an imagined afterlife. So their attention is split -- part in clear and present reality, part in a fantasy world. How can anyone be a compassionate, caring person if they aren't connected with real people in the real world?

[observer]

"A dead organism has no concerns whatsoever, including whether there is some kind of experience that follows."

Yes, but humans do query what happens after death, when they are alive. heh.

"How can anyone be a compassionate, caring person if they aren't connected with real people in the real world?"

"Real people?" "Really, real reality?" What the heck is that? Each person's 'reality' is totally unique to themselves.

I suppose each individual is responsible for giving meaning to their own life.

[Brian Hines]

observer... sure, people are able to give their own meaning to life, but they aren't entitled to make up their own facts about life and then expect other people to accept them.

I have no problem with people getting through life by believing in an afterlife. But I do have a problem with people making this a supposed fact about reality, or a probable truth about reality, rather than what it is: wishful thinking.

[Avi]

Observer says, "It seems people just want to be happy. What a useless, selfish attitude."

Please correct me if I am wrong but, it seems that, by "people" you mean majority of people and not everyone or at least you don't include yourself in that category.

By the way, what's your suggestion that people should do to get themselves rated by you as having some "useful" and "selfless" attitude?

[Mike Williams]

M Theory proved there is a field one trillionth of a millimeter in thickness
that produces everything in our universe.

It even explains the collision of 2 dimensions which created the big bang.

The Theory of Everything has been solved.

We are the One. It is everything.

It has now been mathematically proven ...
Something Else exists.

The question now is .....
can you contact It and respond from It ?

[june schlebusch]

.Yes Something Else exists....Growing up in the Cape Penisula I always felt I was a tiny fractal of the great heart of Africa If I had stayed within that feeling of just being ..The land, rivers, mountains, oceans which was my childhood awareness I would never have become "A Person" I had to rise with sun, go to India, find, a Sat Guru and then return to the west, where I await my death....It is a complete cycle...There is no death...I even wonder if there is even a birth?...We have always been...Perhaps in the eternal recurance its no coincidence that the first heart transplant was in Cape Town in 1967. I await my own...{Spiritual not physical, for some strange reason I am in perfect health}.

[cc]

Yes Something Else exists.

June, this is precisely what the author is not saying. How can one possibly know that something Else exists when we know so little about what actually is? Why isn't it enough to find out what you can about what you don't know? Why must you assume the existence of Something you can only imagine?

[Turan]

Observer/June. The totality of your comments indicates a simple acceptance of certain belief systems. To really observe is to be aware of the observer at the point of accepting and investing in belief – or anything else. In other words, where we are not aware of the ego-maintaining processes that leads us to habitually identify with any belief, ideology, concept, creed etc. we are then truly exhibiting selfishness.

To really care is to see that an unaware ‘self’-maintaining life is the main cause of much of the misery and suffering you speak of. Whatever beliefs or conjectures we hold the more pressing issue is to understand why/how we continue to maintain a ‘self’ a 'person' that seems hell-bent on causing conflict and separation.

[cc]

To really care is to see that an unaware ‘self’-maintaining life is the main cause of much of the misery and suffering you speak of.

This implies that so-called selflessness is possible, and I doubt that it is. As long as you can communicate, your communication identifies you. Stop communicating and you might seem selfless to others, but you'll still have to think, and no one can think exactly like you but yourself.

Consciousness as we know it is reflexive, self-consciousness, which is not to say that there is a "knower", but that the information processing the brain does is exclusively yours, i.e., you, yourself.

[observer]

Turan,

My question is - how is it possible to exist as a human being on this little rock spinning through space and maintain a sense of 'reality' if we have no sense of this 'self' that you speak of, as in "an unaware ‘self’-maintaining life is the main cause of much of the misery and suffering".

Yes, I do practice observing and being aware of the observer and I question all of my old beliefs and try to see the ego maintaining processes in my own mind, personality etc.

I can also see that you have a belief system which you are explaining to me. After all you are a 'self' a 'person' with your own set of belief systems. You could not exist if you didn't. You could not communicate and operate in this world if you didn't have certain beliefs, habits, thought processes, conditioning. All these programs are operating within you and creating who you are. We can't just simply jump off a mountain and disappear into thin air. We are here in a body, with our thoughts and habits and perceptions. Each person perceiving their own reality.

You don't even know me, yet your perception from my comments is that I have a "simple acceptance of certain belief systems" which is total bs. I question everything.

Some people on this blog 'believe' that the only way to understand and make sense of this so called reality is by using logic. This is still a 'belief system'. How do we know there is nothing more than this, as if logic can explain all.

[Mike Williams]

" How can one possibly know that Something Else exists ..?"
quote cc

We can not see the future. Even the smartest, most honest man, will make horrible mistakes in their life.

How can we get around this and make life perfect ?

Something Else knows the future. It
can rearrange time by having us move
in the correct directions ... despite
ourselves.

Despite ourselves. We must yield to the higher good, that which sees the future
and has the benefit of mankind at heart.

Something Else can move backwards in time and straighten out mistakes long gone.
We can correct our sins... as if we never
committed them, either in awareness,
or naively.

Move back through your past thoughts and
your past actions. Correct these mistakes.
This will affect the persons involved, even
if they are no longer alive.

Something Else is the Magic Wand. It changes
the past and perceives the future, so you
don't need to.

[cc]

Some people on this blog 'believe' that the only way to understand and make sense of this so called reality is by using logic. This is still a 'belief system'. How do we know there is nothing more than this, as if logic can explain all.

The logical mind does not assume that "logic can explain all", so disabuse yourself of that notion before calling "a belief system" that which is a method of ruling out the unlikely, the improbable, and the preposterous.

[777-]

Short Cut Here :

Go into an musical keyboard shop

lighten up

Push the Flute button

Next take the highest F key
and hear that tone

Next go 2 octaves higher and try to hear

When you still hear it
diminish slowly the volume
even down to zero
and a big chance exist that you still hear something

If not, . . . repeat later on

People will say : "This is Tinnitis"

It might if it's painfull or kind of ugly

but It can also be the anahabed Shabd Sound
which can take the form of little twinkling bells
or a swarm of bees
It's very personal
You can try the same with the C- tone
or a combi F-C

Now, . . what can we do

Start again the repetition of the 5 terrific words !
They have the power to modulate
the tone you hear
I mean : from flute to twinkling etc
but they can also add the impressive UNDER-tone of the Kôln big Bell

Anyway
it goes much further and with these 5 words -you are safe !
Thunder might come -perhaps after years-, . . . but what it
certainly will do is ending this conversation
about the eventual existence of God
because
You will rather quickly experience
that what you really are
is much more this Sound than each 7 years recycling thing, the body

You will already realize that you don't have to die together with the body
because you never were that gross molecules stuff

You will realize AND HEAR AND BE ABSORBED in that ascending sound at the right side

Don't do the above at the left side
the sounds overthere descend for sustaining creation' string/wave theory
for the better or for worse

I did that before I was initiated
with pranayoga and it is a bad remembrance

I even said : Meditation no more for me , never I will do that again

But these 5 majestic words if given by a POWERFUL human who puts the force in it-, . .
they changed everything and during half my life
I enjoy every second 24/7 of life
and do nothing else than thanking Charan
who gave it 50 years ago

Heaven is not a time or a place
It is integrating in this musical presence which is our Soul

Observer is right
the basics of all this is the same
as the target of evolution : COMPASSION
but I think Brian knows that

Compassion can never be exercised so intensely and without second thoughts as on a planet like this one
where ultimate karmas are worked out

It is ultimately Compassion that will connect all jeevas to this Sound
which we forgot to attend to a long long long time ago

What is almost never said is that this Shabd is also and in the first place : Love

Like a teenager with her first mega-crush
you will be in this love
and forget a lot

So visit the music store and be happy

ps
Remember the movie 'Dune'
and some girls there had great power in the words they uttered

That is at hand for ALL who are compassionate as the Buddha said

It will ever grow !
be happy that things just have to start yet
It means that all festivities are on the brink
of start to happen
And This will never stop
Your Soul will be forever

and so advaita is not true, at least very incomplete

Our future is giant

777

-

-

[Turan]

I’ll try to clarify two points re the ‘belief’ and ‘self’ – which are very much interconnected.

Belief in the sense I use it is an acceptance by the mind that something is true or real. Such beliefs are usually religious or supernatural ones. It is this type of belief that I do not have. A belief in say the age of the earth is not a belief as it is supported by verifiable evidence. Similarly, a belief that my savings will be profitable in the future is not a belief it is founded on a certain amount of investigation and hope. We habitually use this word belief when we often mean hope or expect.

The ‘self’/‘person’ describes our identity and is of course a necessary tool for us to live and exist. I often put it in quotes to denote that what we feel as a fixed, solid entity is actually (like the mind) a construct, a construction that is composed of information we have assimilated since birth through experience – and often indoctrination! And, as an aspect of the mind the ‘self’ is not permanent; an accident or illness can damage the part of the brain responsible for re-calling the information that comprises ‘me’.

The ‘self’ readily identifies with ideas, concepts, beliefs, etc. that appear to maintain its sense of permanence to the extent of identifying with supernatural myths and stories and ideologies that divide and separate. A mind/self that relies on such beliefs can feel their loss or criticism as almost like a physical threat where in effect it is only an idea, a thought that is questioned. It is this largely unconscious process where at the extreme people will die and kill for beliefs where vigilance and awareness is called for.

There is a lot of science about on this topic - and Brian's next blog touches on it.

[cc]

The ‘self’ readily identifies with ideas, concepts, beliefs, etc. that appear to maintain its sense of permanence to the extent of identifying with supernatural myths and stories and ideologies that divide and separate. A mind/self that relies on such beliefs can feel their loss or criticism as almost like a physical threat where in effect it is only an idea, a thought that is questioned. It is this largely unconscious process where at the extreme people will die and kill for beliefs where vigilance and awareness is called for.

You're not advocating the loss of the self but the changing of the self through the loss of bad information and uncritical thinking, so why preach losing the self?

Losing your religious notions and nutty beliefs changes your mental identity, your sense of yourself, but your self remains. Selflessness is a nutty religious notion.

[observer]

777 and June, I enjoy your comments. I'm going to join the 'something else' club.

cc you ask: "How can one possibly know that something Else exists when we know so little about what actually is?"

Maybe something else is what actually is. Just a little fine tuning of the brain and then we are on a different wavelength.

[Turan]

“You're not advocating the loss of the self but the changing of the self through the loss of bad information and uncritical thinking, so why preach losing the self? Losing your religious notions and nutty beliefs changes your mental identity, your sense of yourself, but your self remains. Selflessness is a nutty religious notion”.

Yes cc you are right, I am not advocating “losing the self” merely pointing out the belief in this 'self' as being a permanent entity that describes who I am. The loss I referred to is the loss of the various supernatural beliefs that some become attached to forming the basis of their identity – nothing to do with ‘preaching losing the self’. “Selflessness” is a word that taken literally cannot be; a better word is compassion – which behind our walls of concepts, we all have (well, nearly all).

My second paragraph talks of the necessity of a 'self' and that this 'self' is a brain created construct whose contents are forever changing to accommodate new information (much of which we automatically ignore where it does not fit in with our beliefs).

The third highlights the fact that we are susceptible to maintaining a 'self' based on false or bad concepts about reality. Many rely on religious beliefs (or cultural and national beliefs) to describe their identity which can be so ingrained that to suggest that their beliefs may be false is to threaten the basis of their identity – which for some would feel like losing their ‘self’ or even soul (which they would gladly die for or kill to defend).

[cc]

Maybe something else is what actually is. Just a little fine tuning of the brain and then we are on a different wavelength.

Maybe you're an idiot. Pardon my fine tuning for suggesting that, but it is a possibility.

[tucson]

I have found all the comments in this thread to be very good in their own way and yet they are all useless including this one. One man's clarity is another's ignorance. There is no absolute truth in ideas or the lack of them. In that case, imposition of belief or non-belief in anything is futile and dreamlike. For me, only Being resonates as truth.

[june schlebusch]

Hi Observer on the Keats blog you enquired why I was here, this is precisely why....I get direction...The phrase Something Else is Mike's...I just relate to it..In all humbleness I might well be miss understanding him...When I first heard it, something inside me leapt. Almost as though I had waited my whole life for that phrase..The pieces of my puzzle suddenly made sense.....I no longer have to name things....I can rest in The Something Else...I don't have to know...What a relief... But now strangely enough I feel my real hard work {whatever that means} has just begun....Peace my friend.

[Elizabeth]

Mike:
I don't know who wrote this but immediately thought of you:

"Life is what happens while you're waiting for something else."

Elizabeth W

[777]

I wouldn't be part of Brahma's nature
with it's 100, 000 Darwin-ic murders
per inch² p/sec.

Rather strange while the path of Love ( Dharma ) is
never ending exponentially multiplying fun

777

[Mike Williams]

Hi Elizabeth,

Something Else is a verb. You cannot love
it ........ nor be loved by it.

You cannot know it .... nor where it comes
from.

It does what it wishes ..... moves
mountains .... creates a new world.

This new world is completely compassionate.
But, the person it acts through may act
contrary to logic and good morals.

It changes both the future ... and the past.

Something Else moves forwards and backwards
in time.

If a person truly has the best interests
of the world in their heart and is willing
to concede to this Force..... they can only
watch in wonder as it unfolds.

It is truly mysterious. Absolutely mysterious.

Something Else is all the beauty and compassion that exists.

It unfolds like a flower.... fills beautiful
forests....and expands over the earth.

It is a tremendously powerful and unfathonable enigma.

Nothing can withstand it. Nothing can
move in its way.

Something Else is the Magic Wand and spreads
it wonders with abandonment.

[the9thGate]

Mike...that was nice comment to read mid-way in my day. Thank you. Letting go and conceding to Something Else feels right and yet I am afraid...does this mean I am not ready?

[cc]

Letting go and conceding to Something Else feels right and yet I am afraid...does this mean I am not ready?

If it feels right, you have conceded.

[Mike Williams]

Hi 9th Gate,

Something Else is not for everyone.

It is only for people who want to
dedicate their lives to helping man and animals.

Something Else sits on top of your head.
All you can do is feel it.

By feeling it, it begins operation, here and
now, in whatever state the person is in.

It does everything necessary. You can
only watch.

People are hypnotised and don't think
anything can happen here and now. That's
why they can't discover it.

It is always ready when you are.

It is not interested in making you a saint
or holy person.

You open the flood gates by sensing it
on top of you head.

How do you find your hat, when it is already
sitting on top of your head ?

It happens right now.

Right now.

[Leonard Branch]

If a person feels like its impossible to know if something created/invented/designed all that exists, isn't it also impossible to think all that exits just happened by accident.