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Posted by Butch on 1/24/2008, 9:38 pm, in reply to "Enlightenment??"
216.96.14.X
--Previous Message--
: Greetings All,
:
: Today, I heard the saying, "same but
: different". When i first heard these
: words, oh so many years ago, it reminded me
: of the days when i could just see the
: difference, or the commonality of things.
: So, when i ask myself, gar, what is
: enlightenment i think back to the time when,
: 'this and that dissolved into a state where
: duality is lost.
:
: Reality now appeares to me through three
: eyes, one eye fo this, another eye for that,
: and a third eye for neither, this or that.
:
: in peace,
: gar
:
gar,
I am reminded of a chapter from the New Testament.
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13, NIV. The Love Chapter.
I believe what Paul is saying is the same but different from what many of the great sages, East and West, have said one way or another about what is truly essential. It does not matter what a person believes if they do not have love in their heart. Love is the gravity of metaphysics. As Rumi the Sufi mystic and poet noted, "The Love/Religion has no code or doctrine. Only Love."
True love, love that is whole, is unconditionally open. Love is the essence of the eternal Tao.
Butch
| 59 |
"The Tao is basically utterly open. Utter openeness has no substance. It ends in endlessness, begins in beginninglessnes".
-Li Daoqun
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