In the back of the book Mind Beyond Death, about the six main bardos in Buddhist theory, by Dzogchen Ponlop, a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, is the following poem by the book's author:

Heaven

So blue is the ocean,
Infinite is the mind.
So bright are the heavens,
Luminous is the mind.

Expanse of heaven
Meets with deep blue ocean.
Union at horizon
Takes me beyond breath.

Heaven is bullshit.
And hell the religion of fear.
Man needs no God.
Freedom is innate.

Hi Pat,

I like the blue, bright luminosity of that, but I still need God.  :)

I need to feel the tingle in the top of my skull when I think of It.
I need to vicariously thrill to the inspiration It's provided for man's fine creations.
Then when I look at and compare Eastern with Western cultures, it seems they've both made the same mistakes. So maybe the God -issue isn't central to our spiritual development?

Bets

I almost didn't check this out because of the title. I'm glad I did. I've made several big prejudicial faux paus' this week. :D

Bets,

I sometimes think that a viewpoint like this and yours aren't that far apart.  The infinite, luminous mind encompasses a lot of territory.  I have a hard time with the old white guy with a beard in the sky kind of "God", but I can't rule out some creative force beyond our physical matter reality knowing.  But is it really the greater "us" or something outside us or what? 

Pat,

I used to think in terms of something outside of me that took dominion over everything, but now I can't conceive of anything outside of me...the greater me that is. It's a personal thing though and I feel it so deeply sometimes as if all the world exists for my greater good, but then "me" is all I know and I think of ME as Mass Energy.

I agree, Pat.

The white bearded patriarch has dissolved into the flow of the Numinous Luminosity.

I like to think of us as sparks of the Divine, still connected, capable of flying outward or falling back into the center of Creative Fire.

:D Such imagery would be more appropriate to the 1800's yet it's what feels right to me. It's probably what holds me back from Tom Cambell's Big TOE.  :-?

Bets

Bets,

Do you mean that the idea of Divine is not part of Campbell's thesis?

I found his book to be like buying a car manual and finding out all the inner workings. It just gives more solidity to the ideas we discuss in here. It seems at first that he's going in different direction, but not really. Some of it is semantics in my opinion. But here I am assuming you haven't read the books. Does this make an ass out of me?

A thousand pardons, please, Beau!

I never meant to infer that Tom Campbell didn't deal with the Divine.
I meant my brain operates in an 1800's mode -- I can't read hardly any manuals without going into overload. I wish I could understand Campbell's approach!

Bets

Bets,

I find that his discussion board is very cool. He attends it very regularly and he is very generous with his time there plus Ted Vollers is there 24/7 and helps clarify things all the time. I think you would enjoy it if you wanted to get your feet wet. Some of the stuff for me is way out there with equations and stuff and I can't deal with anything greater than E = Him, see square. I'm just sayin, is all. ;)

Yours,
Beau

I'm just starting reading Campbell's My Big TOE.  About 100 pages in and liking it so far.  He is a bit wordy sometimes, but maybe that gives the reader more time to absorb stuff. 

Beau, can you give the link to his website?  Will it be more useful to finish the reading before delving in there?  I'm finding it hard enough to keep up with a full time job, this site and the rest of my life right now, so I have to make choices on where to spend time.

With pleasure Pat, http://www.my-big-toe.com/phpBB34/index.php?sid=c0a2d83a929957a2d855f97e9233d544

Just bear in mind that sometimes the discussions get way out there in terms of equations which I just skip to the chase most of the time because my tiny mind cannot invest too heavily in the math. Have fun if you in!! Get it: F U N ;)

Yours,

Beau