Posts by Introspection

84

DEVASTED by Wife Leaving...

by confuzcious in

jw
friends

.

thanks for the advice guys...edited by - confuzcious on 31 january 2003 11:51:20.

Confuzcious, at this point you're probably finding out that unconditional love is a rare thing. Even if the witnesses and others preach it, it's pretty hard to find it in the world. Of course, in our everyday dealing with people, nobody will feel they owe it to you, not to mention the fact that it can't really happen through a personal psychology that thinks in terms of who owes who what anyways.

Loving God does not mean people should be doing things a certain way or that things should be such and such a way. There are very few people out there who will just unconditionally accept you as you are all the time anyways, just as you want others to be a certain way yourself. Most people just can't accept life as it is, but invest so much emotional energy in resisting it or in just contemplating how unsatisfactory it is.

Love just means accepting everything and everyone, it's not a feel good thing to bolster people's egos as most people seem to think it is. Remember the bible says "if you love those loving you, what reward do you have?" Now from the individual perspective someone may very well be like "well I'm not expecting this guy to love me back anyways so screw him!!" But if you actually are loving rather than thinking of love as some commodity that gets exchanged between people, then it's real, and not just from a thought - even if that thought is "I love God and neighbor."

A broken heart is a great opportunity to open to this, but make no mistake - it isn't about feeling good. It's not about feeling bad either, but just accepting the truth. Truth and love go together, one without the other will just leave you empty.

13

Is anyone interested in being a penpal?

by teshababe in

jw
friends

hi, i am a 19 year old married female interested in sincere jehovah's witnesses to be my penpal.

if anybody is interested, please email me.

thanks and i look forward to hearing from you.

Introspection

That's funny, I thought sincerity is found in people, not organizations.

84

DEVASTED by Wife Leaving...

by confuzcious in

jw
friends

.

thanks for the advice guys...edited by - confuzcious on 31 january 2003 11:51:20.

Introspection

It's too bad that a lot of people just can't see when someone is being genuine but rather judges by the outer appearance.

42

what kingdom melody is still stuck in you head??

by christopherceo in

jw
friends

i find myself whistling several when working and when i catch up with what's going on i stop.

anybody else?

Introspection

"Move ahead, move ahead to apostasy.." Seriously, it doesn't crosses my mind except when on this board, and then it's pretty much a bastardized version of the lyrics like so.

11

Gnostics

by joannadandy in

i am writing to the people on this board who are way smarter than i could ever hope to be, there are quite a few of you here, and have some understanding of religions.. i just picked up a book about gnostics.

mainly because the back cover talked about william blake (who i already knew was gnostic) and john lennon being holders of this philosophy.

it's supposedly a history of this religion/philosophy.. i am only half way through the first chapter...the author is rather full of himself and is constantly reminding the reader he went to oxford and subconciously knew of gnostic principles his whole life.

Introspection

I guess I now experience spirituality through the convictions of others. Appreciating what they have to say. Gaining new insights and moving on to a new interpretation.

Well, it's good that you distinguish between insight and interpretations.. I actually don't see spirituality as having anything to do with conviction, but it's one of those words that people have issues about. You can call it whatever you want, but if you want to appreciate it some kind of experience is probably involved right, even if you don't like the word spirituality. Call it the human condition or whatever you want, but it seems that appreciation can hardly be there if it's only a dry intellectual process. You say you are interested in people's experiences, you can actually have their experience to some extent - after all how else would you really know about it? Look at it this way: You can have the same experience as someone but not consider it a religious experience or believe in anything.

Well I'm not interested in hijacking the thread, it's up to you of course, if you want to just understand what you read then by all means, but it may be of interest to get inside their head (I am pointing to that as a step beyond what has been written) and what they feel, if you want that insight. Don't get the idea I mean some special kind of religious insight, either, but it's simply a matter of what's going on inside of those people.

11

Gnostics

by joannadandy in

i am writing to the people on this board who are way smarter than i could ever hope to be, there are quite a few of you here, and have some understanding of religions.. i just picked up a book about gnostics.

mainly because the back cover talked about william blake (who i already knew was gnostic) and john lennon being holders of this philosophy.

it's supposedly a history of this religion/philosophy.. i am only half way through the first chapter...the author is rather full of himself and is constantly reminding the reader he went to oxford and subconciously knew of gnostic principles his whole life.

Introspection

Ok.. It doesn't seem to be happy with formatting so I will just paste it as text normally:
-----
3a Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

4 Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live.
For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one."

22 Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."
-----
Anyways, seems to be pretty clear doesn't it?

Edited by - Introspection on 29 January 2003 10:51:23

11

Gnostics

by joannadandy in

i am writing to the people on this board who are way smarter than i could ever hope to be, there are quite a few of you here, and have some understanding of religions.. i just picked up a book about gnostics.

mainly because the back cover talked about william blake (who i already knew was gnostic) and john lennon being holders of this philosophy.

it's supposedly a history of this religion/philosophy.. i am only half way through the first chapter...the author is rather full of himself and is constantly reminding the reader he went to oxford and subconciously knew of gnostic principles his whole life.

Introspection

I am only half way through the first chapter...the author is rather full of himself and is constantly reminding the reader he went to Oxford and subconciously knew of Gnostic principles his whole life. (Whooptie doo--GET TO THE DAMN POINT)

Hehe, I had to laugh out loud at this Joanna.

I have to ask you though: Do you really care? The reason I ask is this kind of attitude is to some extent found in any given tradition - not that they don't have anything valuable to say, of course, but even people who sees through all the religions and is pretty much on the ball in terms of the main thrust of spirituality often don't realize what it is that they've read about. I mean, if you think human beings have a spiritual nature then you don't have to turn anywhere else except yourself right? You have the reality right there, whereas any nice system of knowledge is only conceptual. This is probably the biggest mistake, thinking that the taking in of conceptual knowledge is going to get you somewhere spiritually. I think of that second part of vs. 3 of the Gospel of Thomas where it says: "When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty." Saint Satan eluded to the non-dual aspect, just consider these verses from Thomas:

(Seems this message is cutting off half the post, I'll have to post a second one)

Edited by - Introspection on 29 January 2003 10:43:31

25

Who is the Alpha & Omega?

by edp81 in

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who is the alpha & omega in rev.

who is the first & last in rev.

Introspection

IOW, even if we die or someone kills us, that does not mean we have reached our "end". Because of Jesus, "If" we put our trust and faith in him above anything else, he has the power to decide our end.

Hi Plm - here's a thought for ya: If we do not reach our end and go on to some other existence, then of course it is not an "end" in the absolute sense of the word. So you might say it's a new beginning, yet an end to the old existence - both the beginning and the end in a sense. In fact, that's just the way life is isn't it? Things are always changing, so one might say for the sake of simplicity that there is always change, which you might also describe as something ending and something else beginning, but that's just a longer way of wording it.

25

Who is the Alpha & Omega?

by edp81 in

.

who is the alpha & omega in rev.

who is the first & last in rev.

Introspection

I have to say, though.. Often the question of who seems to be pretty meaningless. If you see an interesting post online, who cares who it's from? All you may get in answer to that question is a screen name to the effect of "abc123" or something, it does't tell you a whole lot about "who" that person is does it? It serves as a reference at best. What actually told you about the person (which is still quite limited I might add) is the content of the message. If nothing else you assume that what comes to mind when that designation is mentioned brings to mind the same sets of ideas in the mind of others as it does yours, which is highly questionable. So to have meaningful discussions it would seem we need to lay all our cards on the table so to speak, otherwise we just sound like a bunch of owls.

25

Who is the Alpha & Omega?

by edp81 in

.

who is the alpha & omega in rev.

who is the first & last in rev.

Introspection

.. Ok, we've talked about who it is, but what about what it means? I can't remember the common interpretations of this, JW and otherwise but if you're calling something or someone the beginning AND the end, the same one, doesn't that in effect mean there is no beginning and no end because those two things define each other? Or to put it another way, it's two sides of the same coin. The first and the last, same idea - if the first IS the last, then there's only one thing isn't there? The one who was, who is and who is coming - past, present and future - timeless. Seems pretty clear.