Bindi

Some famous Western thinkers thoughts on God: According to Freud, man invents God through his imagination to calm his fears. Jean-Paul Sartre, though an atheist, admitted his need for God. Walter Kaufmann referred to man as the “God-intoxicated ape.” Jung was asked if he now believed in God. "Now?" Jung asked, "Difficult to answer. I know. I don't need to believe, I know."

Thankyou 子泰, the association between happiness and chi flow especially is a truly valuable insight to me.

Thanks for the warning I won't look, and I'll keep my

I believe that God is the very fabric of all the universes which must be a generative force, as God apparently generates itself in a multitude of ways, one being matter. I think that our 5 senses blind us to our true nature which was generated by God therefore must be of God, and when we realise this blindness we start out on any number of paths to regain the experience of our true God nature. I believe that it is possible for us to perceive the nature of God as unconditional love and unconditional knowledge, though God is probably beyond this perception, but I trust that it is possible for us to experience this perception of God in matter, which we call enlightenment. It seems to me that the idea of hell as separation from God is the state we find ourselves in here on earth, though I believe in the Christian Hell the point is that a soul is forever separated from the presence of God, and that is not the case for us because enlightenment is possible, and we are also apparently aware of God in between lives. But I also think that full enlightenment therefore full re-experience of God while alive on this earth must happen to only one in many billions of people.

He specifically said he didn't want to derail this thread with a comparison between Buddhist emptiness and a Christian framework, though I disagree that this was derailing anyway. You have assumed that this includes zapping as derailing, despite his post#25 which directly correlates light transmission with zapping. Also, it seems to me that if you have experienced Jeff's light transmission, then ergo you have experienced gnostic/mystical Christian light transmission, since this is what Jeff states his light transmission is.

In the OP it's about gnostic light transmission, the term changes to Christian mysticism transmission some time later. Also I have already quoted Jeff's reference to zapping in post #25 of this thread where he “Acknowledg[es] that light transmission can feel like your body is rearranging and you are being zapped with a million volts.” His post seems to directly contradict your contention that your personal experience with zapping has nothing to do with light transmission. I feel like there is a strong tendency in your group to gloss over or otherwise ignore certain aspects of Jeff's light transmission. Why not use this thread to explore some of these seemingly contentious issues?

okay, but I had meant zapping specifically in relation to Jeff's light transmission. Why is it so inappropriate to examine certain aspects of light transmission in detail?

No, you're right. Can we discuss zapping (another favourite topic of mine )?

Jonesboy, Jeff wasn't saying I was derailing this thread with a discussion of kundalini but with the concept of form and void, which as you and I know you introduced as a synonym for motion and rest. Actually Jeff even thanked you in that specific post, so as far as I knew you were correct and he supported your comparison. Since form and void as a concept did actually start to make sense to me, I was happy to explore the concept of 'motion and rest' as 'form and void'. Through the heart sutra as you suggested, through the Zen story that I put forward, it was all to understand 'motion and rest' from Thomas 50. It didn't seem like derailing at the time to ask whether 'void' was then synonymous with 'emptiness', and I still can't understand why it wouldn't be, but I guess my exploration of motion and rest/form and void and emptiness is over here. FWIW, I personally am glad that you supplied that equation motion/rest = form/void.

According to the OP On the topic of confusion… Perhaps this might add some clarity. This is a clear definition of Gnostic Christianity and Light transmission by Tau Malachi from the Sophia Fellowship. Note that gnostic light transmission cannot be separated from the gnostic transmission in authentic gnostic tradition. Jeff, it seems to me that there is so much confusion because you are a self-proclaimed gnostic light transmitter with no authentic lineage, whose transmission seems to be associated not with authentic gnostic transmission but with kundalini – see for example post #25 of this thread where you “Acknowledg[e] that light transmission can feel like your body is rearranging and you are being zapped with a million volts.” This is not gnostic Christianity. This is manipulating kundalini energy. It’s a shame that you are unable to explore your transmission ability with any degree of objectivity, which might add clarity to what is actually occurring, instead of obscuring its true nature in confounding theory.

When I was asking what 'motion and rest' meant exactly, Jonesboy supplied this: The correctness of this statement was not challenged at the time, so I have been assuming that rest = void as far as this thread goes. Am I now to assume that his statement was wrong?

I am more than happy that you would answer directly Jeff. So rest = void but not emptiness?

Jeff states that he often calls transmission and reception the Holy Father (silence/rest) and Holy Spirit/Mother (motion/light/energy") respectively. So in Jeff's terms does transmission/the Holy Father/silence/rest equal emptiness or not?

You did read this sentence at the end of his story didn't you? "don't be attached to Samadhi -- you must 'pass' Samadhi. Zen means 'everyday mind,' not special states of mind. Moment to moment keeping a clear mind is what's important." So perhaps he has gone far enough after all... What to you is the nature of emptiness? edit: I see there is another thread that is questioning whether emptiness is nothing. There hasn't been a definitive answer there yet. Is a clear mind emptiness or nothing? Or empty fullness and potential? I prefer the latter concept myself. Which is similar to Jeff's concept of infinite potential. Does emptiness=empty fullness=nothing=infinite potential=void=full void=rest? And only the permanent experience of this is to enter into reality (past Samadhi)?

You wrote "In the purest form I often call [transmission and reception]...the Holy Father (silence/rest) and Holy Spirit/Mother (motion/light/energy"). Post#117 on this page, referred to by you from another thread. I see I mixed them up and asked if energy was light transmission and silence was light reception because without referring directly to your definition I went with the association that I intuited as correct. Still, I would have expected your answer to just clarify my mix up. But now you say I am off track. Honestly Jeff, how can I ever understand what you are going on about if you keep changing what you mean like shifting sands, with a different response according to the season? What does "energy is more like attached light" even mean?

A Zen story by Master Seung Sahn about form and emptiness. It is said that insight concerning the truth of things liberates, and knowing that ultimately everything is nothing is that truth. How does this relate to the heart sutra, and motion and rest, and form and void?

Are you referring here to your specific concepts of energy as light transmission and silence as light reception?

I find this post to be as full of irrelevant opposite pairs as previous recent posts on the subject of motion and rest. That these spurious synonyms are then used to substantiate a conclusion does not make that conclusion valid.

50. Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.' If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'" Thomas' Jesus isn't saying he has come from the light, but that the people listening to him should use this as their response when asked where they come from. Apparently this was because proselytisers were routinely questioned about their lineage, and this response bypassed the need for a lineage. But in the meantime I have found a satisfactory answer to my question through researching the possibility of 'their' being a grammatical error: From 3 different scholars: It [established itself], and it revealed itself in their image. BLATZ And it has been shown forth in their image. LAYTON It [. . .] until they show (?) [. . .] their image. DORESSE Using Blatz's translation, the sentence in full would read 'the light revealed itself in their (their questioners) image, so in the image of humanity. And after all that, I'm finally happy with this sentence, because i think that 'God' is indeed revealed in people.

With those that can see Qi, what do they see? Yet you compartmentalised light transmission as a higher form of Qi. So on further consideration is light transmission higher or all one and the same? Do you consider light work to be internal cultivation, and a mirror of an external observation of the source light? Or do you consider light work to be a direct experience of the source light, so beyond internal cultivation? For me dreams are indeed a mirror - of the distance between my embodied consciousness and the source. My embodied consciousness is moving towards the source, it just hasn't arrived there yet. I do do a form of Qi/energy work as well which I wouldn't refer to as a mirror of an external observation of the source light. I would refer to that as partaking in small measure of the source energy.

50. Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.' If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.' If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'" If 'appeared in their image' meant appeared in the image of Christ, it would have to read 'appeared in my image' as Jesus purportedly spoke these words. So grammatically it doesn't make sense that 'in their image' is in Christs image. And 'their' is plural, which needs to be taken into account when ascertaining who 'their image' was. Do you have any other ideas on this issue? So to you being chosen means being ready to receive the Holy Spirit. Though I don't see this conclusion being supported in Thomas 50, nonetheless there is biblical support for your statement, eg. 2 Thess. 2:13, "But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth."

You were happily speaking for Jeff in an earlier post (below), so I didn't realise there was a restriction on this, but fair enough. Can you give specific examples of how motion and rests sounds exactly like the Heart Sutra to you? Motion and rest as ripples on a pond and a calm body of water respectively seems quite sensible and quite a reasonable analogy. But this analogy doesn't clarify how motion and rest are 'evidence of the Father in us' for me. Can you tie it in? You seem to be proselytising here, but I would prefer to just stay focused on issues that have arisen with the Thomas 50 verse and the Holy Spirit at the moment.

Everyone is in but not of this world, even if they don't realise it. Ok, I can go along with that. It was claimed in the OP that light transmission is the Holy Spirit (kundalini), and it is this claim that I am asking proof for. This proof must relate in some fashion to the biblical understanding of the Holy Spirit since the biblical Holy Spirit has been specifically referred to. According to the bible the Holy Spirit is physically visible or audible to onlookers when it appears, and rests upon them for some time. That would be one proof, that an independent observer has either seen or heard the Holy Spirit descending on someone during a light transmission. Other proofs would be gifts directly associated with the Holy Spirit in the Bible, specifically the gifts of healing and working miracles, gifts of foretelling things to come, discerning of spirits, speaking with diverse kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. According to the bible, there are different kinds of gifts but the same Spirit distributes them (1 Corinthians 12:4) according to the will of God or the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:11), but you claim that the Holy Spirit has been transmitted despite lack of verified observation and despite the lack of any kinds of gifts being received at all. So what is left of the Holy Spirit in light transmission, when there is no evidence for it at all? Your only evidence is an experience of Unity. Fair enough you experience this, I am not questioning that, but the experience of Unity per se does not constitute evidence of the Holy Spirit - in fact the experience of unity is not specifically associated with the Holy Spirit in the bible. There is no expectation for people to see Qi when doing Qigong as Qi cannot be seen directly by the human eye, though I gather people often feel Qi. But if Holy Spirit/kundalini transmission is specifically referred to as light transmission, then I would expect light to be visible. It is a simple conclusion. What do you mean when you say that light is just a higher form of Qi? According to Dr. Sadao Hayano in his paper Measuring Qi Energy: ‘Qi wave or Qi light’ is the electromagnetic wave ( or light ) having a wave length λ = 10-5 m. Qi energy is known to have the frequency fq = 3 x 1014 cycles per sec. and a wave length λ = 10-5m, which define energy Eq = 1.99 x 10-19 Joules/photon for the Qi wave. We note that the Qi wave is in the spectral region of far infra - red light and can not be directly seen with the human eye. http://www.equilibrium-e3.com/images/PDF/Measuring Qi Energy.pdf What region of the light spectrum are you referring to which is 'higher' than infra-red light?

I'd still like this to be clarified, who is being referred to here? This verse does say that they are 'blessed' because they have eyes to see and ears to hear, it doesn't specify that they are 'chosen' which is what i asked for from scriptural references. You say being chosen is about being ready to receive, my question is being ready to receive what exactly?

Jeff says that motion and rest have to do with residing and receiving. Now you say motion and rest are the same as form and void. Just because they are opposite pairs (though Jeff's aren't really opposites, and i suspect he really means transmission/receiving) doesn't actually make them synonymous. Your examples just seem to be plucked out of thin air, they don't make sense to me, and i'm struggling enough already with seeing the spiritual relevance of motion and rest in the first place. Could someone explain the spiritual relevance of motion and rest by actually referring to the words 'motion' and 'rest'? Another example of what, motion and rest? How does this verse relate to motion and rest, or form and void? Why bold present moment? Is this in some way particularly relevant to motion and rest and form and void? So are you saying that within and outside are synonymous with motion and rest? I think even a physics professor would be getting a bit bogged down with all these apparently synonymous pairs of opposites. Motion/rest, residing/receiving, form/void, within/outside...