zoofence.com

I have just read an essay at the Washington Post website about Project Ijtihad , which is described as “a charitable initiative to promote the spirit of Ijtihad, Islam’s own tradition of critical thinking, debate and dissent”. It's an interesting essay , particularly given the condition of today's w...

Jenjulian, I truly hope you are not really so afraid as “This is the scariest time of my life” sounds! I cannot imagine that you need to be that afraid. Your spiritual undertaking has put you into no danger, and no harm will come to you from it. As for “yanking out these roots and yanking myself int...

Yes, the answer is trust, as ACIM says, "trust would settle everything now." Yes, the answer is surrender ("Fear of the will of God is one of the strangest beliefs the human mind has ever made"). First, as you already fully realize, there is no easy answer to this dilemma. As lo...

One of the pitfalls along the path is mistaking one station along the way for the end of the line. You're right. In Ibn 'Arabi's wonderful book "Journey To The Lord of Power" whose sub-title is "A Sufi Manual on Retreat", he describes the steps along the way. And as he does so, ...

An afterthought re the discrete or personal God: In Hinduism, one of the names of the Divine Mother is Durga. About Her, it is said that She nourishes the poor, She dispels the demon of ignorance, and She bestows the blessings of wisdom and love on those seeking God-Realization. Very nice. But notic...

To me that says that the idea of a discrete "God" and other discrete beings who aren't God is a dualism that cannot exist in the known universe. I suppose a “discrete” or personal god is necessary as long as we think we are discrete or “personal” persons. That may be why religions like Bu...

As I wrote here earlier, I really like this story about the little grain. In fact, I like it so much that, with Art's agreement, I have posted it to TZF's Open Space, where I hope it will remain as long as TZF survives. For those interested, the direct link is http://www.zoofence.com/open0081.html.

Art, Welcome back! We are delighted to see your name here again. We have missed you, too. And we look forward to your input wherever you are moved to write. I fully understand your struggle with the I-Thou thing. As I have written elsewhere , I (and Nancy) have traveled both a jnana and a bhakti pat...

This morning, thinking a bit more about this thread, there came to mind a few lines from Witter Bynner’s translation of the Tao Te Ching that crossed my path many years ago. First published in 1944, this book is in my opinion still very much worth reading. Its title is The Way of Life According to L...

You're right Gulliver, these are tough questions. Here’s my take on them. As I see it, the problem with the argument of free will vs. predestination is that it is impossible to prove one way or the other. One of the Brother Theophyle cartoons addresses this issue by having Theophyle intentionally pe...

Consider this. Yesterday, I am returning home from an appointment in town, and I notice that the car ahead of me is boldly marked “Park Ranger”. That piques my interest because the nearest National Park (Acadia) is some fifty miles from where I am at the time, and so, ever curious, I wonder why he h...

Yesterday, reading in the text volume of A Course in Miracles, I came across the paragraphs quoted in green below. Virtually all of the Teachers agree with what I understand to be the thrust of these two paragraphs: That what each of us perceives as “my life” is an illusion, just as what each of us ...

The other day, I came across an extraordinary poem by Robert Frost. It is apparently based on an actual event that was recorded at the time in a local newspaper. The imagery in this poem is really something. The poem’s title is “Out, Out - ”. One site on the internet suggests convincingly that Frost...

ihavesayso, Remember the old mariners' saw -- "Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink"? Perhaps in the context of the spiritual search, the same line might read, "Water, water everywhere, but not a willingness to drink!"

Here’s a very nice passage from The Niche of Lights by Al-Ghazali – The gnostics (see my note below), after having ascended to the heaven of reality, agree that they see nothing in existence save the One, the Real. Some of them possess this state as a cognitive gnosis. Others, however, attain this t...