There has to be a good reason for being esoteric, to me, even in the mysticism sense.

The difference between mysticism and poetry is the latter is never trying to be.

Let's see if I can clear up my understanding and help you with yours.
For us there are two kinds of love, Love of Self and Love of All. For the Infinite Supreme there is no distinction as the All is the Self. But for us it is a different matter. Every action taken in this universe is done out of Love. Either for Love of Self or Love of All.
Love of Self is essential to the survival of the body in this universe but beyond survival Love of Self is corrupted in greed lust desire etc.
Love of All is the freedom from our Self and a return to the true self.

If love leads you to suffering it is because you Love yourself more than All.

But suffering is only a mental state. It is a form of weakness. Everyone has pain that is just a part of life, to endure, is to overcome that pain, to suffer is to become a victim of it.

As for the Darkness, it is merely nothing, the absence of Love, the absence of good, the absence of everything. But it is still a part of the infinite supreme. The darkness is merely a receptacle for the light of the infinite supreme. The only difference between the light within and the light without is that the light within is not infinite, it has form and limits. The light within is what most religions call God.
I hope that helps some.

More blathering from a fool. Will it never end?

You have demonstrated time and again that you have no ability for philosophy and yet you continue to troll around embarrassing yourself with you ineptitude?

Do you not even realize how sophmoric you are?
You have no business writing anything in this forum. You should just quietly read and learn.

Snares ought be illegal, elephants get there feet stuck in them and are deformed for life.

True philosophy only exists in the mind and cannot be expressed with words, images or symbols. It is only through story that ideas are ever adequately conveyed from one body to another.

I thought they were born that way...And Christians get snared too; but no one cries about them...

If Love is an Absolute, it is necessarily incorruptible. If we are to accept that it may be corrupted by attributes which are not Love it cannot be an Absolute.

The concept of Self-Love, is a useful expression; but only if we agree that Self-Love is that which allows us to overcome greed, lust etc as an expression of the true nature of Self.

Or perhaps because one values Love above the All.

Endurance of pain is not the same as overcoming pain, it is merely accepting it as a condition of life. To endure pain suggests a resistance to pain. This is not the same as transcending pain. One must confront the source of pain in order to overcome it.

Thank you for sharing this. Yes, your ideas do help me to clarify my understanding. I hope that I may offer some points for you to consider as well.

Let us all surrender to abuse... I am sure if we give up our reason and go quietly we will be treated well, and fairly... Who wants to be first???

It's my opinion that thought and language are inseparable. For me, thought is unthinkable apart from language. But I include mathematics & music as part of this thought-language.

And when you mention story, is not this just concept arranged in a narrative?

That is because a good Christian is crying for all of mankind they are to busy with charity than with gain.
Do you not think Christians with all their judgements ought know better, in fact could they?
Is not the 10 commandments the basis for all law?
Is not law a 'good' thing?
i know, what is a 'good' law or a 'good' Christian?.
Does it not end up being a law unto themselves?
forgetting that law is not just to proclaim the heathen but to teach them?

(little off here)

Thought exists long before language. Language was created to convey thought from one body to another. However, if you hold that the information contained within a cell is language, then I can see where you are coming from.

In my experience there is a difference between this exchange of material information and the exchange of intelligible information called thought.

It is only this symbolic exchange of thought between two bodies that I refer to when I say language.

Yes, but it is a crude arrangement of concept as words are never entirely accurate.

I think I see where you are coming from. Yes, there is structure/design presumably that was here before language...but I would argue that language makes this structure aware of itself. You might say that the Supreme looks at itself using Humans (and other species) as eyes. Now, I would probably just use X for the supreme, or maybe "the Absolute", as the ground of existence remains mysterious to me. But the idea is the same. I've heard it expressed this way. Man is the universe's way of seeing itself.

I agree with Jung, and perhaps yourself?, that myth can reach places that abstract language cannot. And for me this is related to the power of music and visual art, which have a sensual-emotional component which adds the fullness of the message. I also agree w/ Hegel that Christianity is the absolute religion in that it's Incarnation myth is the "truth" in symbolic form. God is a mortal man. This is not to deny the mystery he is immersed in, but Hegel might argue that would he is immersed in is himself, as all distinctions are contingent.

It has been said that Man is the mortal God and God is the Immortal Man.

I agree with Jung, and perhaps yourself?, that myth can reach places that abstract language cannot. And for me this is related to the power of music and visual art, which have a sensual-emotional component which adds the fullness of the message. I also agree w/ Hegel that Christianity is the absolute religion in that it's Incarnation myth is the "truth" in symbolic form. God is a mortal man. This is not to deny the mystery he is immersed in, but Hegel might argue that would he is immersed in is himself, as all distinctions are contingent.

I've often wondered about the applicable validity of opposition metaphors in mystic traditions. Why are they applied so often? What are we supposed to gain from them? When the two ends of the metaphor cancel each other, what is left to understand?

There is no proof of a creation of anything from our vantage point. None! All that is evident we do recognize is but a continuation of something else. Something else to something else. If anyone can identify a creation of anything, please make it known! It is an assumption at best. If one can identify what nothing is, please do so. Love is the complimentary/complementary union of something with something else. Nothing ever existed nor will it ever as far as we will ever be able to determine.

William

I understand what you are trying to say and it the assumption of many. I, for one can't conceive of a time when there was nothing. The only thing I can imagine is always something. Creation is the something from nothing and I can't imagine that ever happening. No matter how small we go, we find something there, always have. See what I mean? So again I ask show me nothing and I will believe you. Promise!

william

I understand what you are trying to say and it the assumption of many. I, for one can't conceive of a time when there was nothing. The only thing I can imagine is always something. Creation is the something from nothing and I can't imagine that ever happening. No matter how small we go, we find something there, always have. See what I mean? So again I ask show me nothing and I will believe you. Promise!

william

Don't think of Creation as something from Nothing, rather think of it as something from within Nothing.

It may be easiest to think of the infinite supreme as a fog of sorts. A dense fog without end.

With Science we can observe the Universe and see how this pattern gets smaller and smaller down to quarks, that is, every thing is part something and part nothing (that something ultimately being the pure everything of the Infinite Supreme, but science hasn't gotten that small yet).

We can also see how once we reach the Sphere of life the process is reversed and the ascent is begun. In plant life wecan witness it in how flowers balance or how cabbage grows, in animal life we can see it in shells and how rams don't have to adjust there stance over their lives even though their horns continuously spiral out.

I would suggest that if "something from nothing" is your problem then simply dismiss it.

Substitute it with: something from within nothing that is within everything including nothing.

Love of Self only leads to a life of Necessity. It is exactly what causes greed, lust, etc. It is only through love of All that we can fulfill a life of Destiny and overcome petty issues like greed, lust, etc.
Perhaps you have a different concept of what Love of Self is, would you care to explain your concept? It may just be that we are using different terms to describe the same thought or the same terms to describe two different thoughts

It seems you are trying to conceive infinity. That's a tall order Tri......as you might, ha! Hey, pun intended. Always wanted to do that. But still you are asking me to believe the same just drawing a different picture. No one can conceive such a thing from our view point.

I am with you on the all, boundless light and infinite supreme and all that. There aren't enough superlatives to define what ALL IS and I commend you in your effort.

Yes, at best, it is our best guess that we were "created", and yes it is likely we possibly were, but fathoming and comprehending and understanding all that is so far beyond esoteric it stifles the imagination.

It's always been a popular discussion and an unanswerable one if god created the universe, who, then, created god?

Mind bogglers and that's all they are. If it all the same to everybody, I don't concern my with such boggling stuff; there are many 'somethings' to occupy my mind. As a matter of a fact and I have mentioned this before here, the first "long word" I spelled was SOMETHING. I was so proud of myself. All my peers were still on three and four letter words and I was all the way up to something, ha! Nine letters in one word all in the 'write' order spelled correctly. Gold star for me, ha!

So yes something means something to me and nothing means nothing and you ask me to imagine it and I can't possibly do that and no one can definitively in such a way all will understand. So I ask why do it? Is it you feel it is ALL or NOTHING? Is that the notion that compelled you to include nothing in the all?

From our vantage point, yes, nothing exists but that is not all that god is. Defining all the god is, is mind boggling,.......literally; intellectually or emotionally overwhelming; "a mind-boggling display"; "a mind-boggling puzzle".........and we are among his so many pieces.

When we focus on something is better than boggle us with nothing in a description of something. And god, at best is SOMETHING else all together and we are part of that togetherness.

Tri, I could go on and on and on in trying to define what nothing is and it will get us to exactly where nothing is...................NO WHERE. We are spinning our wheels, so to speak, to do that. You may not think that, but I do and it is here we have our quandary as it applies to all. Some do some don't and we kill each other because of that....................literally. And that is where we are spinning our wheels tragically, catastrophically leaving as far as we can realize NOTHING in it's wake. I care not to think of what that nothing will be nor will I where nothing is concerned.

I know you want me to think like you but I can't do that; no one can. All we will ever to is think together positively as one, separately developing a synergy of perpetual motion in one direction. Let's hope it will be a positive one as far as we are all concerned.

Sorry, tri, it's difficult to see in a fog and I don't have the foggiest notion of a god in that respect. If you do, then all I can do is wish you well in your journey.

Observe the entire universe? From our vantage point at best it is a dim and foggy one yet in and of itself it is as clear as day. As far as science getting that small? I think that will be mighty risky; look at what we did with the atom. Perhaps we will become nothing as long as we consciously attempt to look for it. God help us if we do ever find it. I care not to even attempt to visualize that, let alone imagine it.

I do agree we do see it in nature. But of the animal, what about the parthenogenesis we recognize in "some" of that life. How about that as it relates to us?

Nothing is nothing. I will always have a difficult time substituting any thing in it's place by proxy. If that is what you choose or imagine, so be it as far as you are concerned and I wish you well in your journey as you offer to others any conception of nothing. That has always been the case in any discussion of what god is; far beyond any one's ability to understand it. All it can do is create more confusion illustrated by Schrodinger's cat, Sokol's hoax, Dawkins' delusion, and Darwin's flawed original thinking. Personally I prefer Popeye's exclamation: "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam"! Colloquially speaking, of course. Speaking of which.....what's in a name, huh...................

Yes, I find the expression 'Self-Love' as you use it misleading. The lower desires and power drives are formed in what we would call the ego, so I would refer to this concept of love-of-self as Ego.

Love is an attribute of God, but not the entire nature of God. I consider Love to be that creative force within the Universe which brings into being. In Hebrew tradition this is equivalent to Boreh, God the Creator, or Al-Khāliq in Islamic tradition. Hindu philosophy expresses this most clearly as Brahma as an offspring of Brahman. When I mention valuing Love above the All, I am making reference to this error of valuing an attribute above the source of this attribute. So, yes, I may, under this definition be compelled to value Love above all else, and by creating such a hierarchy of belief, de-value all else. Simply stated, it's loving the gift above the giver of the gift.

Nor am I suggesting that I love myself beyond that of which I am part. I stand in awe of the Universe and do not believe myself more entitled to the gifts of the Universe above any other entity which forms part of this fabric. The struggle, I am trying to come to terms with is aptly describe in this quote I recently encountered in Rilke:

"To have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the mast inexplicable that we may encounter. That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm; the experiences that are called "visions," the whole so-called "spirit world," death and all those things that are so closely akin to us, have by daily parrying been so crowded out of life that the senses by which we could have grasped them are atrophied. To say nothing Of God."

I am a coward in the Face of Love and because I value Love above myself, I cannot be in harmony with this attribute, and instead hold it away from myself for fear of its realisation within me.

First you have to realize that you are not "his" so much as you are "him"

When people first start consciously contemplating Nothing it can be quite scary. The first moment of realization puts one in direct contact with death and most are not ready for such things.

This is how humans have thought for over a hundred thousand years. It was only one thousand years ago that religious men taught humanity to be insane.

It has been said that Man is the mortal God and God is the Immortal Man.

That there is no difference between God and Man(men).
The differences in both direction are an illusion.
As above, so below.