Players

[poliphilo]

I think Spirit is like clear, untainted water poured out into earthen vessels.

Earthen vessels- that's Biblical innit?

I think this world is an experiment.

And not to be taken entirely seriously.

I like Shakespeare's insight- the one he keeps coming back to- "all the world's a stage/ and all the men and women merely players."

We are here to try on different roles. To find out what can be done with a certain set of genes and social circumstances.

Why?

Well, why not? Perhaps for no better reason than that it's an interesting thing to do.

Between lives we are subject to the judgement of our peers. They are not unkind. They will have made the same mistakes themselves.

Is this experiment devised by God? I think not. I hate hierarchy. I think the only God or Goddess that exists is Spirit- omnipresent, unstructured, playful- and that we're It.

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I like this - trying on different roles. I think I've been in the same role too long. Hopefully, the move to Europe will help me to shed this role, of which I have become tired, and try on a new one, hopefully one that will be a better fit than the last.

You really are right, the more I think about it. I think about the people I have been in the past, and the people I want to be in the future. Of course, this then begs the question as to which is the REAL person??

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think there is a "real" person. They're all roles. It's just that some of our performances are more convincing than others.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm...so you don't believe that there is a true essence of us somewhere?

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I have heard one description that may (or may not) be helpful:

Our personalities are pearls on a string. The string is us, the essence.

And, to continue Tony's discussion here, I believe that string is God.

We are, perhaps, at essence, God.

God Who plays, Who enters into life fully, so fully that Creation itself becomes created and is at play, unknowing, in the fields of the Lord.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think we are spirit. And that the portion of spirit which is us incarnates many times. Maybe that essential self takes a certain colouration from its incarnations. It would be nice to think so.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Maybe that essential self takes a certain colouration from its incarnations.

Hopefully so. We contribute to the creative soup because our "strings" change as a result of our the lives of each of our personalities.

--I have little doubt that, if I do reincarnate in some way, I'll be drawn--once again--towards church music and organized religion. It's like a magnet--

This is process theology, then: our contribution to the soup changes its essence--changes the Creator.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes. The creation is the Creator's act of self discovery.

The creation is in the process of becoming (to use a nice word that came up the other day.)

[jenny_evergreen]

We think alike. I pondered this one for some time, although currently have largely rejected it; I suspect that there is not that much cohesiveness in any given "chunk" of spirit. I think maybe fragments might get kept, by chance, but... (That would explain some people's fragmentary "memories" of past lives, perhaps...) I like the idea of spirit intermingling like that, and all the variety that would provide. I think cohesive "chunks" would get tired or bored or something...and I think it wouldn't feel like home if we were always so separate.

I also wondered if the universe, the spirit part of it, was in the process of slowly becoming sentient; all our small experiences over the millenia might perhaps cause such a thing in the larger whole. It's an intriguing possibility; the larger and more complex a thing is, it grows more slowly; the universe must be still an infant; what it could become as it grows is fascinating.

But then I think that maybe spirit will just always be what it is, an ever learning/exploring/existing thing, and I like that, too. Simplicity does tend to seem like truth.

I wish more people thought/felt the way I do. It gets a little lonely sometimes.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, the religious journey is a solitary exploration, I have found.

My most exciting ideas have never really resonated with others, to my frustration!

Here: I wrote this. It thrilled me so much. Still does! I felt I'd made a breakthrough discovery--combined mysticism with string theory, something only people of our time could do!

(I know: I took off like a rocket with my Idea, and it may mean nothing, except to me.

But it is also important to me BECAUSE I begged God--with some irritation--to tell me what was going on!)

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

Ultimately, the religious journey is a solitary exploration, I have found.

My most exciting ideas have never really resonated with others, to my frustration!

that's it! i hate being solitary (in some ways) but at the same time i can't be anything else because i can't explain myself, my feelings, my beliefs so that anyone else understands them.

to see us humans, to see myself, as an earthen vessel is a good image (but i may have a hairline crack....)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

but at the same time i can't be anything else because i can't explain myself, my feelings, my beliefs so that anyone else understands them.


Thinking for yourself, however, is like opening the door and walking out into fresh air and light.

[jenny_evergreen]

Some, though, are much more solitary than others, I have found. I would like to be less solitary; I would like to find a community with which I had enough in common; such a thing doesn't really exist for me, the best I can do is UU, and that is more a conglomeration of utterly solitary journeys than even a partially shared one, to my mind. So. *half smile*

What you wrote does resonate with me; it makes sense to me as an alternate idea to my general one, which is that there was no true beginning at all.
I can see yours; though, of course, what you call God and ascribe intention to, I do not call God and do not ascribe intention to; to me, that may be where spirit comes from and goes to, then. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe in individuation. I think human evolution is all about becoming more sharply defined and singular. As a chunk of spirit gains in wisdom and experience so it becomes more cohesive and less likely to fly apart and mingle.

I like the idea of the whole universe becoming sentient. Perhaps we humans are at the cutting edge of this process.

[jenny_evergreen]

I don't rule out individuation; the idea of becoming more cohesive as a result of accumulated wisdom and experience is basically word for word one of my theories; in the end, though, I've concluded (for now) that more unity rather than more separation seemed more correct to me. What need does spirit have to be more individual, really? What purpose would it serve? Those are the questions I asked myself and did not find satisfactory answers; to me, there are more compelling reasons for unity, for sharing and mingling, for the greater whole remaining such.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we have a choice. We can choose unity or we can choose individuation. And both choices are perfectly valid. And why not?

Why shouldn't we all be conducting different experiments "at play in the fields of the Lord"?

[jenny_evergreen]

Certainly possible. And, now that I think on it, that might be what underlies the duality concept present in so many faiths; two distinct, mutually exclusive paths, spirit exploring each. Interesting food for thought. :)