Ludwig Wittgenstein

This is another great thinker and writer.  I especially like how he writes about the solution to problems.  If you are trying to fit a square you into a circular life hole you will have many problems.  But if you realize that you are a square and find a way to fit into a square hole lifestyle than life will be filled with joy and peace.  It is interesting how Ludwig writes that those who seem to have no problems are looked at as being "...like a mole," and just wonder through life blindly.  This very thought goes along with my theory of the deconstruction of society through the media.  If we find God and true love and understanding through Him, we will start living like we were meant to live.  Free.  Think about how you would live with out all the external superficial  pressures of buy this, act like this, dress this way, think like this, like this music...    

Isac of Nineveh

I think these exerts from the writings of Isaac are really well in tune with God.  Our whole identity should be in God.  this means everything we do, say and think are to be in God.  those who want to be known by the world are usually those who have some great attraction to the things of the world.  To be attracted to the world is to be unattracted to God.  If someone wants to be as close to God as possible they should rely on Him for everything.  Consider death, someone who is humble to God in everything will look at death with confidence because they know that their life is in Gods hands.  And if "there is a love that is like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth; it keeps flowing forever, and is inexhaustible." that is in God, we have no reason not to love and trust Him.  In the end it comes down to the heart.  It is not about what you do, but it is about why you do it.   

Symeon

I think this is an interesting viewpoint.  I agree that the more we know, the more we realize that we know nothing.  This concept applies to every facet of being.  The more knowledge we gan about God the greater we understand that we have no idea about His being.  The way to understanding starts in a room with two doors.  The first door when entered reveals a room with six doors.  This continues until there are to many doors to choose from.  Symeon believes that the way to break the cycle and find true understanding is not choose any doors and to clear the mind.   I really like the first passage which is filled with truth.  When some one is immersed in God they perceive everything differently.  It is the only way they can see.  It is like seeing for the first time.  suddenly the whole world is different. 

Al-Muhasibi

Freaking wow.  This man had peace, love, and joy that was overflowing through him into his writing.  His message is one of finding God through loving Him back.  It is refreshing to read this because so much of the world (or maybe just the United States) focuses on the ritualistic and religious aspect of finding got which causes peoples thoughts and actions to be skewed from that which God intended.  If we love Him and seek after Him we will find Him.  We will do so in a way that brings us into His love, peace, and joy that only he can give.  By focusing on the rules one will only be caused to stumble.  But, focusing on a deeply loving and longing relationship with God will have their path directed because they are motivated by the most powerful action of life, Love.

"Then he [God] throws you into self-mortification. so that you continue to strive and, for a while, to pride yourself upon your efforts, thinking that you are advancing or achieving something; but afterwards you fall into despair and feel no joy."  I think this is one way in which most of the American people have failed so miserably.  Our whole culture is flooded with the idea of self love.  Not self love as in being comfortable with ones self but a superficial self love that is derived from television and magazines, people are told (not suggested to) what to wear, how skinny they should be, how they should act, what is "cool", how much money they should make, how relationships should go, ect...  We are told that we only amount to what we can gain as opposed to what is true,this truth being what we can give.  Those who strive for fame and fortune have no joy when they achieve what they strived for, they only seem to want more money and more fame.  The more they get the less joy and satisfaction they have.  So why do so many people strive for these things?  Is it because they are stupid and can't see that pattern of increased wealth and decreased joy?  Is it because they know no other way?  These questions can only be answered by those living this life, but what I can say is I hope everyone would just stop and think, in order to realize what is truly important in live.  Then we can fight back at the social modeling of the mass media.       

Johannes

I think what she is writing about in the beginning of these passages is comparing God to an artist in a way.  Be gazing ate a beautiful painting one can grasp something about the painter.  This is because the painter can not create what is not in him/her.  Therefor the painting is in a way a slight  reflection of the painter, only with a painter few snapshots of this reflection can be seen because a person can only paint so many things.  Whereas God in creating all of the universe and everything on this planet gives us innumerable, constantly changing works of art.  Think about the millions upon millions of symbiotic relationships throughout nature.  This being only one small example of the pure awe inspiring mind blowing intricacies of God and His nature.  From these works of art that is nature we can catch a glimpse of the reflection of God as who He is.

Franz Kafka

He was a profound thinker.  I do not agree with a lot of what he says and some of it is down right confusing.  I don't see how it was impatience that got Adam and Eve expelled from paradise.  What were they impatient about?  They were already immortal as the bible would say, they had almost everything they wanted,  what got them kicked out was they wanted the one thing they could not have.  Fruit from the garden of good and evil.  I do partially agree that the reason they don't return is due to indolence.  All it takes it effort to find God.  If one does that they will most likely find him.  I like the line " beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached."  When someone finds the truth there is no going back.  Even if that person turn from the truth they still know it.  They will never be able to get rid of the knowledge of what is true.  He seems to have some aspect of Chinese religion in his philosophy.  Notably where he states " Idleness is the beginning of all vices, the crown of all virtue."  It is the same as do not doing.

Albert Einstein

I had no idea that Albert Einstein was a thinker in this realm of thought.  If one of the most intelligent men to have ever lived, ponders God or the mystical as he calls it, shows how rudimentary this concept is to human thought.  " he to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead."  WOW! I could not say it better myself.  This is also trying to answer the question of life and death, the origin of existence.  Science is a way of understanding our world, hopefully not to disprove that God exists but to prove that he does.  Einstein goes about explaining that the reason that we can not understand God is because we have such small amount of intelligence.  Coming from one of the most intelligent men ever this is amazingly profound.  We are only an optical illusion of what we really are seems to suggest that we have souls or something that is the true us which we can attain.  I am impressed with the ideas of this man and plan to do some research on the subject.  

Hermetic Writings

 I don't agree with some of what he says.  Especially "if you don't make yourself equal to God, you can't perceive God."  I don't think that there is any way humans can even come close to perceiving like God.  He thinks to understand God we have to perceive ourselves as God.  I don't think we have to power to be like God in almost any way.  I completely agree that "wanting to know God is the road to God".  If a person does not want to know God there is almost no way that they will find God.  I don't think God is all things but a reflexion of Him can be seen in all that since He created all things.  That is one of the beautiful things about God.  He gave us the incalculable beauty that is nature in all its intricacies.  We can defiantly see aspects of God by what is created but not God Himself. 

Plato

The quest that Socrates was on was a quest for true beauty.  This beauty was not God as many religions see God but it was the unfading, unchanging, unbound beauty.  It can not be obtained easily.  It has to be sought after vigorously.  It is "eternal oneness".  These ideas fit in cosily with Taoism.  The beauty seems allot like the tao in that it is not a being but a force or energy that is.  This beauty would also fit in with Confucianism because the way in which Socrates was told to find it.  One of the "rungs of the ladder" was pursuit of wisdom, which is a strong focus of some of Confucius's teachings.  It seems that many religions are searching for the same thing but have different ways of explaining what it is.  Some call it God some the Tao and other The Eternal Beauty. 

Rumi

A part of this passage on page 104 seems to say that God does not care what name you call him, what way in which you praise him, or even what religion you belong to.  It is all that you seek after him with all that you are and praise him.  "What is poison to one is honey to someone else."  The author states that there are many ways to God.  The tongue need not be corralled by a person filled with love because he will have noting to say but that which is rooted in love.  What is on the inside of a person is what makes them loving or beautiful.  it is better to be filled with the inner beauty that can only come from God, than to be God-less and beauty-less but have all the vanity you desire.

Muhammad

I like these passages from Muhammad.  The views about God are very similar to many other religions that we have studied so far.  "whoever knows himself knows God" depicts the common idea that God is inside of everyone and the knowledge of oneself is the key to knowing who God truly is.  That is to know the all powerful and wise entity that is God.  It is interesting the usage of the word "we" referring" to God.  not knowing much about Islam, I was wondering what others think about it?  Is it referring to the trinity of Christianity?  

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus preached about non-materialism, forgiveness and most of all love.  The love about which he spoke is true love, the kind that can only come from God.  It is a love that transcends all social, economical and political boundaries.  It is a love that given freely even to those who don't deserve it.  This is because the love we should have is the love of God.  If God cares for people that curse and hate him, his followers should do the same because they should try to be as much like him as possible.  God loves people so much that he forgives them of anything they have ever done against him or will ever do.  This leads to the question, what is sin?  Sin is anything that is not of God.  God is all Good and therefor anything that is not of him is evil. ya.

Thomas

Although I have previously stated this I will do so once again.  It seems that all of these religions focus on allot of the same things.  Most notably, changing yourself is a way toward God or the light of enlightenment.  Also the things that are hidden will be revealed through dedicated searching.  The scriptures are not something one is to understand by simply reading them.  instead, understanding comes from constant searching.  By the passages given it appears that the kingdom of heaven is on earth.  Therefore people should focus on what is here and now. 

Pai-Chang

Enlightenment is described as being like awakening from a dream.  What an individual learned is one's own and not from outside sources.  Meaning the individual sees the world in all its aspects without the fog obstructing its view.  This fog takes many manifestations including; (in our own world) how we are instructed to think from school, how we are suppose to look by the magazines and TV, how much money we should make, the way we should act and dress,  all of which are only the cognitive constructions of someone else's mind dictatorially forces as "the way it should be" into our minds.  The enlightened mind will be free from these mind traps.

Tzu-ssu

Like all of the previous readings I enjoyed this one.  Even if I do not agree with the principles and philosophies contained in the text I still profit from the knowledge and understanding of other religions.  Taoists have a lot of the same ideas and beliefs as hinduism.  Notably the idea that the world and everything in it is connected.  We are as much a part of the ecosystem as we are of the universe.  This idea of human nature and its connection to the world is Tao.  Tao is the harmony of balance and equilibrium of the senses, emotions, thinking and all aspects of life.  Job, social status, family, location of residency, are all things that if enjoyed and accepted the way they are bring about the fulfillment of the Tao, creating what is known as the "mature person."  Fulfillment of the Tao does not spontaneously manifest itself in an individual.  Instead it is cultured over the individuals lifetime like a flower who's light is obscured by the growth of another plant changes its direction to regain the light it lost.  This happens over and over throughout the flowers life until it finally dies. 

The zen philosophy described in the text Wu-Men goes hand in hand with that of the text the Diamond Sutra.  the focal point of meditation is to be on the word MU and only on the word MU.  Meditation on the word MU will cut off the mind road and allow access through the barrier of the ancestors.  One way in which the this Zen philosophy deviates from that of the Diamond Sutra, is that it calls the mind to focus on one thought, MU, while in the Diamond Sutra the mind is called to not be called and therefore not the think of anything.  Secondly Wu-Men goes say that if attained the attainer will reach a point where they will see and hear the same as all the great ancestors of the ages.  

the diamond sutra

I enjoyed the reading.  It gives a good snapshot view into the underlying philosophy of the Buddhist religion.  The concept that there is no self and there is no lack of self is particularly interesting.  Evert thing is and is not.  "the truth is ungraspable and inexpressible. it neither is nor is not."  It is hard to grasp this concept.  but that is the point, if one were to grasp it, that individual would attain true wisdom and become a Bodhisattva.  The only way to this higher state of being is through enlightenment.  In the beginning of the passage the author shows the reader the mindset of a person who seeks enlightenment but has the wrong idea of what it is that enlightenment really is.  Another concept involved in the text, reveals how the mind should be free from thoughts, only because the mind is conditioned to needing thoughts.  If the mind was free from its dependance of thoughts than it need not give them up.  "when I attained Absolute Perfect Enlightenment, I attained absolutely nothing.  It can't be attained it can only be received.  To attain something one must be in the act of doing to receive which will negate the reason for doing it in the first place.   I do not agree with the concepts involved in the text, for people to strive for something greater than themselves they must have exactly this. something to strive for.  without something to strive for and a mind free from thought we are essentially in a vegetative state. Plus no man can fully give up what he needs.  For example everyone depends on food, even if it is a pea for breakfast and a carrot for lunch.  Everyone also depends on water and oxygen and must sleep from time to time.  With that in mind it seems impossible to reach a state where the body, mind and spirit could ever be free from those things which it needs.  Unless the full manifestation of true enlightenment is only found in death.