X-Ftn-To: George Hammond 

George Hammond  wrote:
>> (Hiya all, allow me to jump into the discussion - I found it by
>> accident.
>
>[Hammond]
>By accident?  I've been knocking myself out for a year on
>the Internet trying to reach people like you.... and you found it
>by accident..???!!!!

Yup. Browsed through the list of newsgroups, saw the one about mensa,
and since I used to be a member, I picked up a coupla messages just to
see what's happening there.

>> As for myself, I'm a spiritual teacher and a Kundalini-yogi,
>> I live in Croatia, blah blah, nice to meet you all, now let's get to
>> the point:)
>
>[Hammond]
>Wow... this guy's like a fresh breeze blowing through this
>stuffy American smoke filled backroom.  Welcome aboard.

Thankyou. :)

>> George Hammond  wrote:
>> >http://people.ne.mediaone.net/ghammond/Creationcall.html
>> 
>> I read the article.
>> 
>> First of all, it starts with a bad or nonexistent definition of God.
>
>[Hammond]
>I make NO DEFINITION of God.  

Well, without a very precise definition, you won't even be able to
prove anything; if you don't define A, you can't prove existence of A.

>I simply discover a scientific phenomena
>and observe that it EXPLAINS THE EXISTING HISTORICAL DEFINITION of God.

You mean, the implicit intuitive definition? Most people have _some_
definition of God, but I must warn you: their definitions are mostly
bad or incomplete. Some define God as an old guy with a really bad
temper. Even the Bible offers two definitions of God, one in the Old
Testament, and another in the New Testament. The Old Testament talks
about the creator and the lawmaker; God created the universe and
people, and he has some rules for us to uphold, or we're screwed. The
Islam re-introduced this concept of God, also the creator and the
omnipotent lawmaker. 
Jesus, however, introduced a radically new concept, utterly different
from this. He said that God is as the Sun, that shines equally upon
the good and the wicked; God is the loving father, who accepts the
prodigal son; God is the good shepherd, who gives his life for his
sheep. According to Jesus, God is the fundamental reality; if you are
in harmony with it, you will prosper, and if you reject it, as the
prodigal son did, he will wait for you indefinitely, but the
separation from him will make you suffer, because it will detach you
from the source of all that is good. 
We have also a new definition of evil: it is a lie. Devil is the liar
and the father of lies, and he stands not firmly in the truth because
there is no truth within him. Devil is, therefore, an illusion, the
opposite of the reality. If you make your house on solid ground
(God=reality), it will have good foundations and bad weather won't
harm it. But, if you make your house on the quick sand
(devil=illusion), the bad weather will destroy it. So, the basic thing
is this: if you have your roots in the reality, and God is the highest
reality, the reality will support you and you will function as its
aspect. If you, however, root yourself in illusions, you will become
an aspect of the illusion, and thus weakened, perish.
So, the God, as defined by Jesus, doesn't even need to punish or
reward: He Himself is the reward, and His absence is the punishment,
and we, ourselves, choose our camp according to our preferences.
That would be the basic point.

If you study Indian religions, they basically say the same thing:
there is the supreme reality, the Absolute: brahman. Brahman is one
and undivided; it is the supreme reality and the highest truth. There
is nothing but brahman. However, it is possible to observe brahman as
a multitude, which creates the multitude of relative beings and
universes, displaying all sorts of his aspects. If you choose to
observe brahman as relative, you can do it though maya, which is often
wrongly translated as illusion, but it in fact means the power of
creation, the power of making. So, we now simultaneously have brahman,
which is the one and only reality, which didn't even create anything
because creation means an action and actions exist only in the
relative sphere, where there is a division between subject, object and
relation. Brahman is triputibedha, the state of unity of those three;
so, we have the undivided one reality, and we have a possibility to
observe it as the entire spectrum of relative existence, from
something very close to utter nonexistence, utter illusion which does
not reflect the reality at all (st. John the Evangelist would call it
Satan, the father of lies), and the ultimate presence of the highest
reality within the relative sphere, which is called Isvara, "The
Lord", and is more-less equivalent to God in Christianity. Within the
relative sphere the beings evolve either towards the nonexistence, or
towards the ultimate realization of brahman, which is attained by
worshipping Isvara, the highest teacher (guru) of all beings; he
teaches what to be. So, by admiring and worshipping Him we attain more
of His qualities, because we become what we admire. By distancing
ourselves from Him we distance ourselves from the Divine attributes of
the reality, and thus our personal reality decreases. Everybody can
witness this: when we love, we become more real, we feel real value
and meaning. When we hate, we ourselves become diminished.
Those are the basic outlines of the philosophy of vedanta.

I'm writing all this just in order for you to see what there's around;
religious people weren't just scratching their nuts for centuries, you
know, and Indian religious philosophy has more scientific basis than
for instance many western scientific disciplines, such as psychology,
sociology or psychiatry. Some of the greatest minds in human history
devoted their entire existence to the practical experience of God, and
their philosophy was created as an attempt to express their
experience. 

So, as you can see, there are several layers of religious concepts.
The pit belongs to the redneck fanatics who have some book that they
don't understand, but that doesn't prevent them from whacking others
on the head with it if they can. Their concept of God is often either
ridiculous or horrible. Their opposite are the greatest minds of
spiritual scientists who talked volumes about things that people
usually consider to be inexpressible. Most people are somewhere in
between - they have some vague concept of God, they think that they
know what it is, but they usually smell a rat somewhere and they don't
want to be a part of that religious crap; they feel that there is
something above and beneath it all, but, because they are uninformed,
they think that they can't do anything about it, and it's best to live
their lives and if God exists, well, they'll probably know for sure
after they die.

However, this is not quite so. First of all, it's all a matter of
perspective. Since God permeates all, he can be seen everywhere, but,
the trick is to know where to look. It's like the radio; the EM waves
are all around you, but you need to tune into the specific station in
order to hear music; otherwise, you can be surrounded by radiowaves
and hear only static. The practice of tuning into it and staying on it
is called yoga, or religious practice, if you like. First you need to
find the reality, to find God, and then you need to remain focused on
Him, until you're perfectly harmonized with Him. The result of the
practice is that you become more divine, because your spiritual focus
dwells on God.

As you can see, I see no point in arguing about anything right away, I
find it more useful to explain my standpoint, so that you can
understand how I think, and why I find your claims problematic.

So, let's continue; I more-less defined my concept of God. The word
"God" might be inappropriate, because it doesn't lay out the subtle
but important parts of the definitions of brahman and Isvara. When I
say that God is the fundamental reality, I mean that God is brahman.
When I want to say that God is the source of all that is Good, and the
manifestation of highest virtues, I mean God as Isvara. There are
other terms that exist only in Sanskrit, and can't be easily
translated to English. One such term is sat-cit-ananda, which roughly
translates as existence-consciousness-bliss, which is how God is
perceived in direct vision. Note that this is one quality, not three.
Sat-cit-ananda is the basic positive principle beneath all positive
feelings, such as love, realization, feeling of reality; all the
greatest experiences in one's life are the filtered and reduced
experiences of sat-cit-ananda, and the opposite experiences are merely
a lack of it, they are defined merely as a lack of sat-cit-ananda, or
God's presence.
As you can see, what Jesus preached maps perfectly into vedanta, he
just wasn't scientific about it, he used images to convey his point,
but if you know what he's talking about, it becomes very clear.

Now comes the funny part: there is no experience. In fact, experience
is merely a filtered aspect of the experiencer. If you look closely,
you are the one who perceives, it's constantly you, only you. You can
experience an external equivalent only if you already have an internal
equivalent of the experience. This means, that if your consciousness
doesn't open up to a certain aspect of sat-cit-ananda, there isn't a
thing in the world or beyond it, that will make you experience
anything. The sights can exist, but if you are blind, you won't see
them. Similarly, God permeates everything, He surrounds us from all
sides, but we almost never experience any of it, except in rare
situations when we allow ourselves to fall in love, or to realize some
important truth, or to appreciate something beautiful, or when we
experience something pleasant that makes us open up. This is what the
Bible wants to say when it talks about hardened hearts; we have
hardened our hearts for God, and this is the reason why we don't
perceive Him.

Now, for that very reason, some people observe God, they are His
friends and lovers, His closest family. They see God as universally
present and constantly within their being. The others, however, don't
see God at all. They observe the same universe, but since their hearts
are hardened, they can't observe the surrounding reality. They don't
see with healthy eyes; but, because they say that they see, their sin
remains.
So, a choice to accept the existence of God is not a matter of
evidence, but a matter of personal qualities of an individual. If your
heart is open, you will find plenty of evidence everywhere; for
instance, did you ever think about the fact that life, as such, is
probably the only phenomenon in the universe that opposes the 2nd law
of thermodynamics? It actually lowers the entropy of the system. You
can even define life as a locality of lowered entropy. 
Consciousness, itself, is also a proof of God's existence, but this is
a bit more difficult to explain so I'll skip. Basically, if your
spirit is reality-oriented, you will undoubtedly come to realize that
God is here. If you're not, you won't see the evidence if it bites
your ass. This is the reason why I see your proof as trivial; there
are much better proofs all around us, and only a few recognize them,
and they do so only because they have opened themselves towards the
reality. If one wants to hide from the reality, well, he can do one
hell of a job. Long time ago I came to the conclusion that people's
capacity for not understanding greatly exceed my capacity for
explaining. So, I can teach those who are willing to be taught, and
the rest, well, they'll come up with some reason why I'm just another
deluded moron talking nonsense.

As for the evidence, the best proof of the pudding is in the eating.
If people want to know if there's God, there are yogic practices that
result in direct personal experience of God; I teach one such system,
and there are others, as well. Some people gave it a try and they
realized the highest reality. The others? Well, they'll come up with
an explanation why all the folks who claim to see God are deluding
themselves, because one just can't experience God because there is no
such thing - not in their world, anyway. This world is such: the guys
who know God risk their lives here; they usually get killed by an
angry mob. But today we're civilized, so they'll probably just end up
in some mental institution.

And so you say you came up with a proof for the existence of God?
Don't make me laugh. I not only came up with a proof, I came up with a
technique that gradually makes you capable of personally experiencing
God, and whatever I say, it usually falls on dead ground. There seems
to be only a handful of people interested in God; you can see that by
observing the flows of money and power. The power goes to the total
assholes, and Jesus gets crucified. This is how this world works. Some
guy spends millions of dollars on trivial things, and this is OK, but
when someone washes Jesus with anointment, it is seen as a waste, it
would be better to sell it and give the money to the beggars. This is
how the world works.
So, what do we do about that? I'm working on making a small change,
but I'm facing all sorts of obstacles; I have no resources, no
support, nothing. In spite of that, I trained a dozen of students. I
will do more, if I can, but if I don't get support, everything I do
will have a limited effect. 

>> To conclude, this article
>> and its "proofs" are theologically irrelevant.
>
>[Hammond]
>Hasty conclusion obviously based on preconceived
>notions that "god can't be proved" etc.  Wrong.

Oh, it can. But not to everybody. Catch 22 is, it can be proved to
those who already have at least a hunch about it. If you don't believe
in God, the odds are that you won't be willing to accept any sort of
evidence, no matter what it is. Take parapsychology, for instance.
There's more proof of telepathy than of the existence of proton;
however, in spite of all that evidence, "scientists" still don't
accept it, and there are guys who actually offer enormous amounts of
money to anyone who proves them a parapsychological phenomenon (!).
Mind you, the evidence is rock-solid, double-blind tests and all,
Nobel prize analysts doing the statistics - even _this_ doesn't
convince the skeptics. 
About God: we had numerous mystics, saints and Divine incarnations
around. Their wisdom is enormous and their personality is beyond
question. However, the skeptics will have no problem calling them all
liars and lunatics, just in order to discredit their testimonies.
Jesus actually raised the dead and walked on water, and did that
convince the skeptics of his time? They actually told him that he was
obsessed with demons, which was their name for madness. After that,
they looked around them for stones.

To sum it up, people filter the reality into their narrow perspective,
and if they don't have it within them, they don't see it without them.

>        By the way, do you know any Russian students online
>     who might speak English and have a few minutes to give
>     us some fresh input.  

Nope.

>     We need all the help there is to be had
>     with this one.  Their chances of "accidentally" finding this
>     as you did are quite slim.
>       Hoping to hear more from Croatia... and, we desperately need
>     your help.

Well, I hope this was helpful.

-- 
Homepage: http://www.danijel.org