The 'problem' of universalism

[taijasi]

A few more words on this thread are necessary, owing to a good bit of uncharitableness on my part. I'm not sure if I'll be able, or motivated, to speak of spiritual pluralism ... or say more on the mountain we're climbing - but that's less important now than an apology.

I'm not sure, perhaps it was due to frustration, since I feel I have yet to have successfully communicated - or maybe it's just the feeling that I have yet to be heard - but it really doesn't matter, the bottom line is that I stepped over it. For that, and because things took a personal turn, I apologize. Especially toward you, Thomas, since as I was mentioning to a mod, I happen to feel that you are person of strong faith as well as much learning, and quite broad-minded. I have always enjoyed your posts, even when I do not agree, and they consistently challenge me in many ways that I had come to miss. In looking back, I do understand now, why my persistence - given the tone and aggressive nature it took - must have seemed purely antagonistic. Frankly, I think that once it became so, there was no hope of making my point, or of finding common ground. Now, however, I think perhaps there is hope.

But I am also somewhat embarrassed ... and more than bewildered at myself, for essentially barking at others, besides. As I have said on another post, I did not actually come to CR to vent frustrations, negative feelings, or any sense of antipathy whatsoever ... toward Christians, or anyone! It was the diversity of discussions here, and the many paths represented - drawn together in dialogue - which interested, and interests me. As has been pointed out, this is not always possible, even in today's relatively progressive society. That I should do anything to send the faithful running for the cross and holy water ... is ironic (in a way that makes most sense to me only, I realize), but moreover, disgraceful. I cannot and will not seek refuge behind any escutcheon other than an honesty - which I hope will also demonstrate in time, as forthright (sic). For the moment, I am bent much more on sensitivity, and keen to learn. Please accept my apologies, all, for the uncharity.

Namaskar,

andrew

[taijasi]

Stuart,

I just wanted to thank you, first off, for the posts you've made that loaned me a bit of proverbial fire ... one or two in particular, but several others as well. I was both comforted and reassured, somewhat, by your open message to me - and although this response has started as a PM, I think an open reply might help to close the loop, so to speak.

Without a doubt, I stepped out of line, and I find that some of the tact, subtlety, or just basic sensitivity (not to mention patience!) which I thought I had ... seems to have sufficiently rusted! I remain interested in sharing my various experiences, understandings, and any ideas that seem to be kind, helpful, and true ... while I continue to balk at the path of the genuine, spiritual yogi. Any of these paths has its challenges, and the personality prefers complacency. True, I am but half your age (33), but the inertia with which I struggle is familiar to all. As it turns out, my own father is 74 this year, and my mother 69 ... explainable in that I am adoptee. Yet my closest spiritual friends have mostly been over 70; one is 101 this year, another is nearly 80. They are two of the most youthful, and vibrant people I know, even if one is an incorrigible dirty old man. His is a heart of gold, and there is nothing he would not do for a friend, as he will gladly tell, tongue in cheek.

Alas, I chose the straight path, though far from narrow. And I do think I have the responsibilities of a karma yogi ahead of me, both in terms of family, and livelihood ... even if I never marry, or have children. The path of the yogi is that of compassionate service to mankind:

"Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition. Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin. . . .

Shalt thou abstain from action? Not so shall gain thy soul her freedom. To reach Nirvâna one must reach Self-Knowledge,
and Self-Knowledge is of loving deeds the child." -- The Voice of the Silence

I'll say more in a private message, but just wanted to express my gratitude here, and say that I thoroughly enjoy your posts, and the spirit in which you post them. The interplay, the interweaving, of energies is a beautiful phenonmenon - and there are few things I find so rewarding as observing (let alone having the privilege of being part of) the expansion of the very warp & woof ... of a greater spiritual collective, or Being, than my own!

Perhaps I can manage a 50-cent word here & there , but often, it's the colloquialisms that seem to suffice. Ain't it so?

In Love and Light,

andrew

[earl]

andrew-i only want to add that i've always enjoyed your "non-strident" posts. while i have my concerns where it looks like theosophy may be over-reaching facts or then some, i appreciate the synthesizing, integrative spirit of it as i do believe there are important divine truths contained somewhat separately in the western and eastern religions that if brought together in a coherent manner could enrich humanity. i see theosophy as at root attempting to do that. but yes only a mutually respectful dialogue with our various "parts" will enable that. do appreciate your sharing however, so wouldn't want to see that end. take care, earl

[lunamoth]

Andrew, I would like to second earl (what else is new? ) in saying that I typically enjoy your participation here. We all have moments where the heat gets too hot and we react. Here's to smooth sailing from now on.

lunamoth

[Thomas]

Andrew –

And apologies for provocations from my part. Perhaps if I stop looking at your finger, I might enjoy the moon ... (and if I stop wagging mine, you might have a chance to see what I am pointing at...)

I apologise also for being somewhat strident in my stance - the only mitigation I can offer is 'a prophet hath no honour in his own country' by which I mean not ourselves, but Christianity itself which, according to the common voice, would appear to the the cause of everything that's wrong in the world ... One get's battle-weary and defensive, and my gaelic genes (albeit anglicised) know but one form of defence...

Pax,

Thomas

[MagnetMan]

Well said by everyone concerned. Confession and Forgiveness cleanseth the soul. As a cranky old man about ready to leave you all to your own designs. I feel warmed enough by the forgoing to stay a while and prod you yet a bit with a revolutionary prong.

By the way there never was any 'problem' with universalism. The Universe has always been perfect. The problem is with our interpretation of its invisible magic. Magic as all alchemists know, comes by an eternal mixing of the elements in search of the perdect recipe to self-awareness. Action is the key, not talk. It is the sweat of man's brow, which comes from the searching and the mixing that fills God's goblet. Holding to a fixed position roots one to the spot. Change,as the I Ching states, is the 1st Law of the Universe.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Andrew –

And apologies for provocations from my part. Perhaps if I stop looking at your finger, I might enjoy the moon ... (and if I stop wagging mine, you might have a chance to see what I am pointing at...)

I apologise also for being somewhat strident in my stance - the only mitigation I can offer is 'a prophet hath no honour in his own country' by which I mean not ourselves, but Christianity itself which, according to the common voice, would appear to the the cause of everything that's wrong in the world ... One get's battle-weary and defensive, and my gaelic genes (albeit anglicised) know but one form of defence...

Pax,

Thomas

ROFLMAO I haven't heard that in a long time...(along similar lines). That was good Thomas...

[seattlegal]

Hmm, the storm clouds are starting to thin, and I hear the Beatles' Here Comes the Sun playing off in the distance...

[Käthe]

Originally Posted by taijasi

The mountain was a useful, three-dimensional metaphor. My understanding, as I read your first post from yesterday outloud, was first one of slight consternation, Thomas ... but then one of utter accord and agreement, when I came across these statements:

"The point is that there are paths, but there is not a universal path - the many only become one at the peak, not all the way up the mountain.

Look at it this way. There is a mountain. There are many routes up the mountain - and the many routes have certain elements in common - because man is man.

Now we can say 'to climb the mountain requires you to go up', or that you must be fit, or have the right gear, but there is no path that is a construct of elements of all the other paths ... there are just the paths ...

... to get to the top of the mountain, you have to climb a path ..."

andrew

There's another mountain metaphor that may shed some light on this (forgive me for being wordy):

Recently I was flipping through a back issue of the magazine “Spirituality & Health” and I landed on an article in which there was this story, related by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner:

“There’s a very compelling metaphor I heard first from Jacob Needleman. He says that there is a mountain, and the mountain is very high, and the top of the mountain is being with God. But because the mountain is so high, its base is so big that it is in several different climate zones. And people have different traditions for how to climb the mountain. People in the tropical climate have a tradition that says wear short pants and a pith helmet and mosquito netting. And people in arctic climates have a tradition that says you wear a snow parka and goggles and boots. When the people in the tropical climates get about halfway up the mountain, it gets a little chilly and they have to go back for a sweater, and when the people from the arctic climates get about halfway up, it’s getting a little bit warmer, and they shed their outer layer of clothing. When they get to the top, of course, everybody’s dressed the same way. The problem, says Needleman, is when people walk around the base of the mountain and argue about how to dress.”

There are a few things about this story that I want to examine here. The first is this: it would be foolish for people in the tropical climate to adopt the dress of the arctic pilgrims, just as it would be foolish for the arctic climbers to strip down to shorts. Each person starts climbing the sacred mountain wherever he or she is, and the tradition (or path) that each person follows is going to be determined by where he or she starts the climb.

This means, to me, that while there must be something absolute in our faith traditions or religions, we must remember that a religion itself is not absolute. If you accept your religion as relative, you may not follow it. If you accept that only your religion is absolute, for everyone, you may find yourself spending more time trying to get others to change their clothes than in actually climbing the sacred mountain.

The second thing I want to look at is this: if indeed everybody is dressed the same way when they get to the top of the mountain, then my suspicion is that only people who have stopped partway up think there is any merit in arguing over who is dressed correctly at the bottom. We may discuss our journey to the top of the mountain with others and be amazed that their experiences were so very different from our own, but we would be foolish indeed to tell those others that their experiences were false.

And, finally, this thought: if you were to ask me how to climb that sacred mountain, I hope I would have the grace to say that while there is a way that I know to get there, I cannot say that it is the only way.

[_Z_]

I have had a good think on this and similar issues, if you could tell me what you think of my current model, i would much appreciate it!
Hmm perhaps you are misreading where i have been going with all of this:
a universal all inclusive god or an exclusive monotheistic god? or both era one in essence! There is a line of argument for monotheism within all of this, i am trying to get to the guts of the matter - it is enevitably a messy business.
Note: i am willing to except that i have been completely wrong in all of this, so perhaps we can all move on towards the light in one way or another! i.e. By agreeing or disagreeing with the following:

1. you can have something that is undefinable and that can also be defined – even though this is a contradiction in the logic. The paradox is in our linguistic interpretation of something that is very subtle and not part of the gross manifest world.
2. In both contexts i think it is at one with the entirety of existence!
3. The undefinable nature is present in all things e.g. Us! Don't we have this nature? i think so and that it is fundamental to our nature as it is to all natures. In the transient world nothing is completely itself, everything is a part of everything else, thus is essentially undefinable.
4. indefinableness is fundamental to freedom in all its forms.
5. If you add the principles and the realities of the infinite the finite and that which lies between, then you have something that is greater than the infinite itself.
6. When you add this to the fact that all things are joined, then we have a universal whole that is the shape of reality, yet cannot be defined. Reality = freedom
7. god being the entity of the whole, is all-inclusive! We are 'it' and 'it' is us and itself!

Thus we have our universal non-anthropomorphic deity.


omnipotence

1.Powers are finite things, you cannot have an infinite power because you cannot built up to infinity, equally so then you cannot come down from it! Thus you cannot reduce it or constrain it in any form whatsoever, which you would need to do in order to utilise it as a power!
2.Infinity as 'a power' itself - this does not equate, infinity simply is not a power as it does not have the qualities of any given power i.e. it has no qualities other than what it is. Equally it is not energy or any other thing of which the universe is composed of, there is literally nothing to harness as a power!
3.Is god then outside of infinity that he can use it? He must be pretty big then! Lol apart from there being nothing there to use!
4.If all the above are incorrect; if you could have an infinite power, then it would be infinitely applicable and thence would only create what you already have i.e. Infinity. – its just a circle.
5. that which is not limited [in absolute terms] is infinity. Infinity is only infinity and nothing else. although we can have a universal 'it' that is beyond infinity as it is all things e.g. infinity + finite etc.
6. god is beyond our understanding! I believe we humans can understand literally anything and everything! Show me something that is not understandable given the necessary info?


Logic is something humans created?


Is it? I think logic is all around us in the real world and we simply read it! This does not mean that you cannot have an entity that logic does not apply to though. The problem then becomes that of definition; if he is undefinable alone then he must simply have no qualities whatsoever i.e. Is nothing?

[DrFree]

Thomas,

I'm new to this thread, I picked your message to reply to as a way of replying to many of the posts, both because you launched the thread, and because you articulated many of the ideas I found intriguing.

Originally Posted by Thomas

Universal Religion
The belief that, since all is God, then only one reality exists, and all religions are simply different paths to that ultimate reality.

Those religions are the 'ways' or as Buddhists might say 'upaya' (a providential means) to that ultmate reality.

OK, although I would like to remind everyone that the term "Universalism" was also used in the 19th Century America for a belief that while not everyone need be right, they are all saved! Starr King expressed this by saying that Universalism holds that God is too good and loving to damn anyone, while Unitarians believe that people are too good to be damned. I'm strongly inclined to Universalism in this sense.

Originally Posted by Thomas

The universal religion can be visualized as a mountain, with many spiritual paths to the summit.

This confuses the mountain with the path, and presupposes the existence of a universal religion, or path, for which we have not one shred of evidence - it is an intellectual construct, the 'visualized as a mountain' has suddenly become a reality. It conforms to a human reason and logic, but still a construct, it is an idea, it is not a reality.

The mountain metaphor is troubling for a number of reasons, especially, I think, because it presumes a single destination, and because it suggests that God is at the end of the journey, not along the path.

It is natural, I suppose, for us to characterize our ultimate hopes as God's will or the right way or nirvana or heaven. But if we ask each other for practical success criteria in meeting those goals (What would the world be like if we really succeeded in fulfilling God's will?), I doubt we'd get much consensus. We each have different destinations in mind. Yet the future is built by the accumulative consequences of all of our collective actions. The useful word here is co-creation. We co-create the future. What you do affects my ability to bring about the future that would, to my mind, effect God's will, and vice versa. So to the extent that my path to God depends on achievements here in this universe, I am dependent on your choice of destinations, your choice of paths, and your skill in adhering to that path. Unless I adopt some form of solypsism, in which I am the only being, besides perhaps God, whose choices are relevant to my reaching God, your choice of destination and path (and here the "you" is universal) would seem to be of interest to me.

On the other hand, if God is along the path, not at the end, then my union with God can much more easily be seen to depend on just my choices, not on what I accomplish, since accomplishment depends on everyone else.

The path metaphor might be useful, however, in resolving some of the issues raised in this thread. The problem we face is that our paths are not isolated; they weave in and around each other, especially in cultures as diverse as ours. Some of the paths (or at least some of the people on the paths) express strong intolerance of the paths taken by others.

Of course, there are paths that are antisocial. People that violate the last five of the Ten Commandments, killers, rapists, thiefs, etc, are dangerous at the very least, are surely wrong in ways most of us could agree on, and sinful (by some word or other) according to most religions. I take it we need to spend time on this thread arguing whether those paths are on the way of or to God.

What many of us are concerned about is a tendency by some people to characterize us who are one different paths as ipso facto antisocial, wrong and sinful. Fundamentalists of virtually every stripe call me sinner and hell-bound, even if their words are different, because of my different faith, even though by other reckoning I think myself to be a reasonably good person.

The various flavors of Universalism would seem to have this much in common: the elect are not chosen because of the way they worship but by the love they invest into that worship and into human relations.

Originally Posted by Thomas

Some are hard; others easy.
This supposes God says "I'll make life a doddle for you over here, but a real trial for you here." One would be obliged to allow such a God to create paths that lead nowhere, or back down to the bottom. We have started by inventing the mountain, now we're making sweeping assumptions about the nature of religion.

...

The point is that there are paths, but there is not a universal path - the many only become one at the peak, not all the way up the mountain.

I don't think I can respond to the wording of this statement in less than half a day of face-to-face conversation. I agree with much, but there seems to be a lot of underlying implications that need to be parsed out.

Nonetheless my brand of Universalism says not that all paths are equal, or that they are all one, but that a path to (or with) God is available to everyone within the framework of their own culture, without the need to import elements of other cultures. Because of the cultural differences, each might adorn the path with language, stories, myths, doctrines, dogmas, rules and principles that differ from one path to another, but that, in and of itself, does not make it wrong.

What is universal is the availability of a path within the culture.

Originally Posted by Thomas

The universalist path makes as much sense as trying to climb every route up a mountain simultaneously.

This mistakes the issue. No one is expected to climb all paths (though in some of my most mystical moments, I often wonder whether the most terrifying forms of reincarnation would be the theory that there is only one soul -- me -- who has to live every possible life). What the Universalis is saying is that even if your path diverges from mine, whoever your are, you may still travel with (or to) God.

By the way, although I believe your might take you to God, I probably disagree with you on a lot of issues, some factual, some moral, some social and some religious. Which is to say I believe you are mistaken (i.e. wrong) on those issues. I just no longer believe you have to be right on those things to be "right with God".

May our paths intersect in peace,
Jim

[taijasi]

I wanted to post a statement, since I do not know the origin of the mountain metaphor, which I just now discovered on the website of the International Liberal Catholic Church:

Christianity is one of the great paths up the mountain of light at the summit of which sits God Himself. It is one of the paths, but only one, and if we have a number of people all round the base of the mountain, the shortest path to the top for each person is the path which opens before him. It would be foolish to have the idea that we must go and drag a person all round the base of the mountain in order to make him walk up our particular path.

-- The Rt. Rev. Charles W Leadbeatter
(1847-1934)
co-counder of the Liberal Catholic Church

Bishop Leadbeater remains the very embodiment for me, personally - complete with flaws and shortcomings - of someone who did the utmost to help lead his fellow pilgrims along, and upward, on the Path.

What you say, Dr. Free, about the problem with the notion that God exists only at the top, is well voiced, and is also not to be assumed by Bishop Leadbeater's description. Certainly Leadbeater would be the first to insist that the Divine is present literally within every atom, since it was his own, firsthand clairvoyant investigations which informed him of this (Seeing is believing!). Also, Leadbeater's ceaseless labor for the great Cause of Brotherhood further evidenced his love both for Humanity and for the Divine Parent, without Whose unfailing and unbounded Immanence the former would perhaps gaze toward the mountaintop and give up all hope once and for all, so stupendous are the heights!

Originally Posted by DrFree

The various flavors of Universalism would seem to have this much in common: the elect are not chosen because of the way they worship but by the love they invest into that worship and into human relations.

This seems both logical, and necessary, in a just world whose ruler is a Lord of Love (vs. the many alternatives).

andrew