Middle Road between Earth and Heaven on Earth

1. Ron Alexander shared Bobby Hinkle's status.
2. The idea that there is more than ONE is the beginning of judgments, comparisons...and war.

1. Loving Unity: The ONE expresses as many, individuated, yet ONE indivisible. As a many-celled organism...only of Spirit...
3.  Richard Kent Matthews: And if we knew that for absolute certain, if all of us reached the same conclusion, the universe would collapse, we'd all disappear, and the One would be alone again. So, we're still here, which means not enough of us are certain that there is only One. Good thing. The One is not ready to alone again...or It would be.

 
• Ron Alexander As usual enjoy Rev. Richard Kent Matthews different way of looking at things! I think both are right - Bobby Hinkle in Reality(the Absolute) and the good Rev. in reality(here and now).

   
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  Richard Kent Matthews And I, RA, never stand on anything absolute. It's why I question. Absolute slams a door; relative opens it.
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• Ron Alexander Thanks for opening the door Rev. Richard Kent Matthews, and I take the middle road, honoring your here and now, in the body earth experience and honoring Heaven on Earth Reality also! Have you ever had a out of the body experience Rev.? Like so many Near Death Experiencers?
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  To me, when I am living moment to moment mindfully, compassionately toward myself and others, I am living in an Eternal Heaven on Earth Space. Ron

 

Ra Divakar Wow, sounds like you just "slammed" the door on the Absolute Richard Kent Matthews

 

 

Richard Kent Matthews I have yet to be convinced of anything 'absolute,' Ra. Since change is the constant, absolute is only a word. The universe is in a state of flow, both physically and most likely spiritually. Absolute sounds like we've 'found it.' Have we found it, Ra?

 

Richard Kent Matthews Ron Alexander No NDE's for me. But I know many who claim to have had them. I take them at their word. But I also know how powerful the human brain is and how it seeks to make the death experience as easy and painless as possible. So, two perspectives.

 

Bobby Hinkle I see Spirit as a sense of restful absolution, surrounded by moment by moment physical reality, one depending on the other in so many ways.
Sounds like my Heaven on Earth: To me, when I am living moment to moment mindfully, compassionately toward myself and others, I am living in an Eternal Heaven on Earth Space. Ron

 

 

Richard Kent Matthews And, in the end, we may all be wrong...or right. Zen would have it no other way. The Spirituality of Paradox.

Ron Alexander I think the "Absolute" goes by many Names - God, Spirit, Source, I AM, Love, Universe, and my fav. Great Mystery and do I believe Absolutely! I do not see how a Rev. (Richard Kent Matthews) can have no faith in Spirit? By the way, I have had an NDE and a psilocybin mushroom (I picked them myself) that has me believing in Source? Not just believing by knowing Great Mystery, even though IT is still Mysterious - really rationally unexplainable unless you experience this Out of the Body High. Oh, I just thought of a couple of other OBE,s after a Sweat Lodge at Klamath Nation, and at an Ashram in PA.

 

Richard Kent Matthews Not relying on 'absolute' has nothing to do with 'faith' in Spirit. Spirit, as you point out, is Mystery. I accept Mystery. And Mystery means it is not known. Absolute suggest there is a Knowable. There is not. That's why it's Mystery. We can put any word on it we may wish. But when we think we know, we know nothing. When we know we know nothing, we really know. We are as much a Mystery as Mystery. And we don't even really know ourselves.

 

Richard Kent Matthews "Man cannot truly understand the essence of his own being; therefore, how can he claim to understand the Cosmos, the Mystery of Mysteries?"

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Ron Alexander Who said anything about "understanding"? Knowing by experience is completely different, and yes 'Great Mystery = Great Spirit in my book! Rev. Richard Kent Matthews - glad you have "faith". "Be a lamp unto yourselves." The Buddha

I know that I live in a changeless Reality. I am not disturbed by the passage of time, the movement around me, nor the variations of experience through which I go. Something within me remains immovable and says, BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. This is I AM, which is God within me, is substantial, changeless and perfect. Paraphrased from Ernest Holmes

"the test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still maintain the ability to function." F. Scott Fitzgerald/ I am not sure about the "intelligence" part, however I think one seeking equanimity (peaceful balance) has to be able to take this "middle road". For me in spirituality, those two ideas are the ones we have been dialoguing about - reality here and now and the Reality of Eternal Absolutes! Ron Alexander