July 10, 2025 • 40 mins
Tracking Wisdom
Episode 31
Seeking the Essence of God: Perspectives from Different Faith Traditions
Recorded - 06/23/25
DESCRIPTION:
This podcast episode centers on the profound notion that no individual possesses a monopoly on the truth, emphasizing the necessity of engaging with diverse perspectives to approach a more comprehensive understanding. Ryan and Peter reflect on a sermon delivered by Reverend Bob Fellows, which elucidates the complexities surrounding the concept of the Trinity and the inclusive nature of authentic worship. The discussion traverses the intersection of various faiths, suggesting that genuine worship, irrespective of its form, seeks to connect with the singular essence of divinity. Through their analysis, we discover that the exploration of spiritual beliefs can foster dialogue and enrich our understanding of the divine. As they dissect the themes presented, listeners are encouraged to contemplate their own interpretations and experiences in the pursuit of truth.
Takeaways:
- The importance of engaging with diverse perspectives to approach a more comprehensive understanding of truth is emphasized throughout the discussion.
- The sermon explored the complexities surrounding the concept of the Trinity and its implications for monotheistic beliefs.
- Authentic worship is framed as seeking a connection with the divine that transcends religious boundaries and is rooted in love rather than fear.
- The dialogue underscores the notion that all faiths, despite differing practices, may ultimately be striving towards a shared understanding of the divine.
Episode Resources
- The Chronicles of Narnia - Wikipedia
- Bio – Robert Fellows
- FPC Service 6/15/25 - First Parish Congregational Church UCC East Derry NH Pastor Bob Fellows
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
(00:23):
Good morning, everybody, andwelcome back to another episode of
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.My name is Ryan.
My name is Peter.
So I had an interesting sermonat our local church, and it resonated
pretty specifically to me in alot of the perennial wisdom that
(00:43):
we've been talking about. Andthis was from a couple of weeks ago.
So I pulled out a couple ofrecorded excerpts from that sermon,
and Peter and I are going tolisten to them and comment on. On
what we take away from them.The three main themes that came across
with this was, number one, theidea that nobody has a monopoly on
(01:04):
the truth, and about theimportance of exploring a variety
of different perspectives. Thesecond point came in, this was actually
on Trinity Sunday, and therewas the pastor's presentation of
the challenge of understandingthe Trinity and monotheism. And then
(01:26):
the third was about still sortof tied to monotheism and worshiping
of the one God, with aninteresting perspective about authentic
worship and an anecdote fromthe pastor that he had through an
interfaith community and afriend of his that was the imam of
(01:49):
the local Muslim. What do theycall that?
Congregation.
Congregation, sure. Sorry,guys. And basically weaving in the
perennial wisdom that we'vebeen talking about into these. Oh,
and I. And I promise from lastepisode, I had an interesting thought
related to the authenticworship regarding God being all things
(02:15):
from the perspective of thisauthentic worship, what it can mean
to worship a variety ofdifferent, say, manifestations of
God within the material world.Okay, so we'll listen to the first
one. And here we go.
I saw a cartoon I really likedthat showed Jesus on top of a hill
(02:36):
and disciples sitting on theground at the bottom of the hill.
And Jesus is saying, nowlisten carefully. I don't want four
versions of this. But havingfour versions helps us to get to
the truth. No one person herehas the truth, but by coming together
and engaging in dialogue, wecan get closer to the truth. So four
(03:01):
versions is a good way to getcloser to the truth. Read all four.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.See where they differ, See where
they're similar. Try to getcloser to the truth that way. How
can we read Scripture and knowexactly what it means to us? Because
you turn to the person next toyou and they'll get a different meaning
from it. So we need to talkwith each other and listen and maybe
(03:26):
hear Something that we didn'tsee the first time on our reading,
but that's how we get closerto the truth. This is a phrase that
is used by progressivetheologians often. And as far as
I can tell, it comes from asong written by a rapper musician
named Michael Franti, who's aChristian. And here's the phrase
(03:49):
God is too big for just one religion.
So I actually pasted a coupleof that was spread out throughout,
but I found them related. Andwhat I heard in this specifically
was kind of what we weretalking about with the universalist
perennialism perspective andthe importance of a variety of teachings
(04:14):
and hearing the message fromin different ways and in different
lenses, because the truth isbigger than all of it. And the importance
in continuing dialogue acrossnot just faiths, but with perspectives
of all kinds. It is thepursuit of getting closer to the
(04:36):
truth. Like, even after that,you don't arrive at the absolute
truth. We can't fully graspand know the absolute truth. But
in engaging in that activity,we get closer. And I think we've.
We've touched on somethingsimilar to that. The language sounded
familiar in a way that, Idon't know. In other discussions,
(04:58):
I feel like we've talked with.It's not about discovering the truth,
but getting closer, like. Likechipping away. I think it also speaks
to encouraging, not just beingopen to. And actually he does speak
a little bit more to this thatI cut out. But it's not just about
(05:21):
tolerating other views.
Right.
But to truly open our heartsand minds to hearing and considering
alternate views in a way thatalso ties to our previous episode,
where it's conceivablesomebody feels friction hearing the
Ten Commandments presented ina way that we did, you know, and
(05:46):
it's okay if there's frictionthere, and it's okay if you disagree.
I think that it's importantfor all of us to be open to hearing
the message in different ways.
I think it doesn't mean thatwe have to accept all the versions.
I mean, so. So what I'm seeinghere is we have four people who wrote
(06:09):
four accounts, right? And eachof them heard what Jesus said from
their own experience becausethey all had separate lives prior
to that. And so they'rebringing different context and experience
specifically to this talk. Andthen they wrote their gospels and
(06:33):
they're each going to expresswhat they experience in their own
way. So you've got kind of adouble filter in a way of how this
could be heard. And, you know,I guess to the point is none of it
is the absolute truth. It's.It's a way of expressing what they
(06:56):
experienced at the time andobviously further filtered for, you
know, however long it tookthem to actually write it right after
the actual event. So. Andthen, of course, you know, memory
being what it is, it'soverlaid with subsequent experiences.
I like what you said about thefirst bit, you know, Phil. So I mean,
(07:19):
just as we. Anytime we haveour discussion, we can hear the same
thing and come away with findpriority and importance and nuances
that resonate quite the sameway as the other person. All right,
let's go to the next one.
(07:39):
So the Trinity is challengingthe idea that Christ is also God.
We are monotheistic and yet wehave a trinity. But to others, to
Unitarians, to Muslims, maybeto some Jews, it might seem like
three gods. But myinterpretation is that the Creator,
the Christ and the Holy Spiritare aspects of one God. It's not
(08:03):
that for me, that at a pointin time, God had a son. Son wasn't
there before, no Jesus. Nowall of a sudden you have Jesus showing
up. That's why the title of mysermon is Always There. And the reading
from Proverbs includes theverse, I was always there, always
there from the beginning.Because Christ is a concept. Yes,
(08:24):
Jesus was a man, but Jesus wasthe Christ. And Christ has always
been there, didn't just showup one day. And the idea that then
when the Son went to heaven,he left behind the Holy Spirit. There
was no Holy Spirit before. Idon't believe that either. The Holy
Spirit has always been there.We sometimes discover things that
were always there, and so wethink that they're new.
(08:48):
This was interesting to me. Iliked that very last bit, which was
just because we recognize ordiscover something doesn't mean it
hasn't always been there. Iagree that when we talk about God,
Christ and the Holy Spirit,that we are discussing aspects which,
(09:13):
you know, I would like for youto ask your question again that you
asked after or off mic. But myunderstanding or my belief in the
oneness of creation doesn'tpreclude aspects, I guess, you know,
perspectives. Just as I wouldsay that from our existence, right,
(09:36):
that we are still all one. Weare still one with the Creator. We
are unique perspectives or thewaves in the ocean, you know, all
those metaphors. And yet weare one, you know, and just like
a tree is a perspective and ahuman is a perspective and a rock
(09:59):
is perspective, all that isstill God. So it's not conflicting
for me personally to think ofa God, God and Christness and a Holy
Spirit ness. But I also, in away feel. I guess I reject, again,
(10:25):
kind of this personificationof it. You know what I mean? And
like, Jesus is presentedthrough the Gospels and through his
ministry as embodying theChrist ness, but the Christ ness
is not Jesus.
Yeah. And I mean, I, you know,largely agree with what you're saying.
(10:48):
And I find this, you know, Iagree that this, the Trinity is challenging.
Not in that you can't talkabout three, not that you can't talk
about God in three separate ways.
Right.
Obviously that's possible. Imean, that's not particularly challenging.
(11:08):
I think one thing for me iswhy are we locked in what. You know,
I mean, it's what. It's one ofour central theses, that there are
experiences of the truth thatpeople try to share and codify. And
then you get locked into thisone version. And so it's like, oh,
(11:30):
no, it's only three. It's nottwo. It's not four. It's not 20.
You know, it's like, why three?
Right?
And clearly it's aninstitution. I mean, it's a historical
reason. It's not becausethere's something inherently in that.
You know, I'm thinking aboutMonty Python, the whole hand grenade.
Right. You shall count tothree, not four, not, you know, two.
(11:54):
So that I find a little. Justintellectually challenged. It's like
Hawaii. Right? And I mean,clearly, if you look at it as a.
What do you call it,comparative religion scholar or something,
you know, you'll find somehistorical reason, some causation
for. And this is when it gotlocked into three. And that's. And
(12:15):
then that's what we have now.But, you know, it just raises this
intellectual question of, oh,okay, I can see why that he has.
That God has different aspectsthat we can talk about. We can continue
to. As God's infinite, we cancontinue to talk. So why three? You
know, so there's that. There'sthat intellectual kind of dissonance
for me. And then the otherchallenge I find is Christ versus
(12:42):
Jesus. Right, right. Becausemy understanding, it's absolutely
essential that Jesus washuman. And maybe that's more of a
process issue, right. ThatChrist had to go the process of incarnating
and being crucified and beingresurrected. And so Jesus was just
(13:06):
part of the process. Jesus isnot. Not the definition of Christ.
Right.
And so. And this is where I'ma little. This is where I'm, you
know, theologically weak. It'slike, oh, well, what is Christ? I
mean, I know, Christ issavior, but you know, I don't have
very deep understanding ofwhat, what is Christ as a concept.
(13:27):
That all has been, you know, Ican, I'm familiar with some of the
scripture, like I'm the Wordand the Word was with God, you know,
all that. I don't know what itmeans. Right, right. I know the words.
And so it's like, oh yeah,yeah, I know that Christ was in the
beginning. Yeah, I knew that,like, I knew that Christ didn't show
up with Jesus. But then itraises all these questions which
(13:49):
I don't, I'm not reallyfamiliar with. So I find that a little
challenging. But I mean, Ithink it's interesting that to have
this recognition. Oh yeah,okay. Jesus is part of the process
of Christ from the beginningthrough, you know, the Jewish people
(14:10):
into the birth of, and thecrucifixion and the resurrection
and the, whatever we call itnow. Right. I guess he is risen.
He is alive. Christ is alive.I keep, I, I seen this recently.
But anyway, so yeah, it'sinteresting. And obviously, you know,
(14:30):
of course, as a sermon, Imean, this is in the context of this
faith.
Right.
It's not a discussion of, thisis not really a theological discussion,
which I'm kind of like, oh, Idon't, I don't get it because I'm
not part of this faithcommunities. I don't have all the
context maybe that, you know,other people are bringing to it or
that the, the intendedaudience is bringing, is bringing
(14:55):
to this sermon.
It seems that, and this is notto criticize, but just an observation
that, and we don't have to getdeep on institutional stuff. I know
we've, we've touched on itbefore and we rehash some of it,
but we don't want to go offthe rails with it. Right. It's not
(15:16):
the point. But it does seemthat there was a point in time where
the institution had a conflictto have to reconcile from the Ten
Commandments that there shallbe no other God to this essentially
(15:37):
at the time self proclaimed,he didn't proclaim so much. But you
know, the idea that of thedivinity of Jesus happened after,
you know, and having toreconcile, okay, so now how do we
reconcile that? And then Jesusbrought up this idea of the Holy
(15:57):
Spirit. So it almost is likethis game in a way of trying to say,
well, you know, it is, there'sonly one God. And our historical
scriptures touched on theseother things that make it confusing.
So this is how we fix that.But I agree with you that ultimately
it's not about three, it'sabout the vastness of, of God.
(16:22):
Right.
In each perspective.
I mean, so we know clearlybefore the time of Jesus there was
a messianic prophecy.
Yes.
So but we don't know betweenthe two of us what that is. We don't
know the specifics of themessianic prophecy. So we don't know
what that version of Christis. I mean, that is a version of.
(16:47):
Or not.
I mean, so that's the thing.And this is what brought Jesus so
much and post crucifixionconflict between the mainstream Jewish
culture and I think probablywhat created, not division, but you
(17:09):
know, a branch, so to speak. Imean, essentially Christianity is
kind of a branch off ofJudaism. Was the going interpretation
based off of my ownunderstanding of the historical scriptures,
was the Messiah being thedeliverer of the Jewish people from
(17:30):
oppression. And the imagerywas of a strong, you know, almost
militaristic type takeover.And the ultimate presentation of
Jesus as the Messiah conflictswith that. And as far as I understand,
(17:51):
Judaism is still kind ofwaiting for the Messiah.
Right.
So like there's still thatbipolar version or vision of what
the salvation looks like. Nowto me, maybe this is just because.
No, I don't think it is. I wasgoing to say maybe it's just because
(18:11):
I have historical exposure toChristianity. But to me, this highlights
the ongoing misunderstandingor anthropomorphization of the divine,
that liberation looks likethis in materialist human culture.
(18:34):
So that must be what it means.But when we're thinking about the
divine and the divine beingthis embodiment of love and compassion,
and it's not likely to looklike that.
Well, I mean, so we'reliterally talking about prophecy,
which is inherentlyproblematic because it's bound to
(18:59):
have levels of symbolism. So,you know, you said a military, militaristic
kind of character. And I thinkthe term is king. Right? A king.
Well, what does king mean?Right. Does it mean someone who wears
a golden crown? Obviously thatwas part of the crucifixion was the
(19:22):
mockery of him being the kingand given the crown of thorns. But
there's this inherently, Ithink inherently symbolic language
of prophecy. I mean, is thatkind of the definition of prophecy?
It's like it's interpretive,it is not literal. So first is understanding
(19:45):
that there was messianicprophecy, that the church, I mean
basically the church isfounded on this Judaic prophecy.
And then of course theinterpretation that this is it, this
is the fulfillment of theprophecy versus the Jewish interpretation
(20:09):
of like oh, no, that was justanother teacher. Right. Great guy.
Not the Messiah. And then. Andthen subsequent. I mean, I think
there. There have been acouple of rabbis at least, that have
been identified as the Messiahas well. You know, obviously fringe
Judaism. But there have beenat least one rabbi, I think there's
(20:31):
one live that, you know, hisfollowers say, oh, he's the Messiah.
So there's always. I mean,it's kind of a. What's the word?
A matter of opinion or like,how many people have this opinion
kind of thing. And then howmuch power do those people end up
(20:51):
having? It's tricky to try tobe very definitive about it.
Sure.
Right. And then. And then, ofcourse, kind of by definition, it
comes down to faith. And thenwhat is that? Right. What is faith?
And I think, you know, we'vetouched on this before of like, well,
(21:11):
is faith, you know, I have tobelieve what I believe. Or is faith
a trust in. You know, like,there can be a kind of faith that
says, yes, Jesus was theMessiah and is alive and I'm saved,
(21:33):
and I feel this and I trust itas being true because that's my experience
of it versus you have tobelieve this.
Right.
You know, and I have tobelieve this, otherwise I will go
to hell. Those are really, Ithink, qualitatively different expressions
of faith. So.
(21:54):
Yeah, something you said mademe want to share this. I don't. I
think it's relevant. I guesswe'll see where it goes. When you
were talking, you were talkingabout, you know, in the beginning
was the Word and this whole.That whole concept, the way I perceive
or recognize Christ is more astate of being and recognition of
(22:21):
the divine within. So whenJesus says something like, I and
the Father are one, I don'tthink is him actually saying only
I and the Father are one.Right. That is him attempting to
communicate this oneness ofeverything and everyone. And, you
(22:44):
know, he's saying there'snothing inherently special about
him, that this exists withinall of us. And when I think of in
the beginning and I think ofChrist as the Word, I think of God
being the consciousness andthe awareness, Christ the child being
(23:10):
the imagination, the creationthrough, thought through, you know,
Word, air quotes, Word, thethought. And then that manifests
into experience. And the HolySpirit is that inner wisdom, inner
intuition that we have fromthe divine. And these are all God,
(23:34):
these are all within us. It'snot Jesus specifically. It's not.
But that these are all theelements of the divine of which we
have access to and participatewith in this version of creation
and dreaming and bringing tofruition the experiences, the multitude
of experiences by which welearn about ourselves and by which
(23:58):
God would also learn. And whenwe think God became man, God has
always been man. God is thatawareness that's within us and has
always been experiencingeverything that we experience. And
this teacher, this. I mean, itdoesn't mean that he didn't create
(24:20):
salvation and wasn'tnecessarily the Messiah, but that
the teaching of the Messiah isthat he didn't embody Jesus and that
was God's experience of beinghuman. God experiences being human
every single day.
Yes. I mean, and that's. So Ithink, you know, in. In the awakening
(24:45):
community as. We can talkabout these things as direct experience.
And so the. The phrase thatcame to mind was kingdom come or
heaven on earth that people onawakening journeys understand they've
(25:06):
had glimpses of, right? Oh,yeah, I'm not waiting for heaven.
I'm not looking for heaven. Isee how this is heaven. And it's
just I get distracted, right?Which changes the whole story. And
likewise, I see how this ishell because I'm distracted, because
I'm not turned towards God.I'm turned away from God, meaning
(25:29):
I'm focused on my ego self andmy materialistic framework of reality.
And that is keeping me inhell. That is like persistent repetitive
suffering, which is hell.There is no other, you know, and
so this is heaven and this ishell right now. It's not this. And,
(25:54):
and, and the, the eternity is.I mean, we know that suffering is
eternal. Like, when we'resuffering it, it. We cannot see the
end, right? That is eternity.And likewise, when we're in deep
realization, we also seeeternity. And we don't say like,
(26:19):
oh, this is gonna be oversoon. It's like, no, oh, this is
it. This is what is alwayshere and has always been, and this
is eternal. And so what am Isaying? I'm saying that in this.
I'm calling a community withkind of like circles of conversation
(26:40):
of people sharing experience.We know these things. These are common.
These are. These are mutualexperiences that we can share and
talk about or even share inreal time. And that's different from.
(27:00):
I don't say it's a different.The description of that in the way
I'm talking about it isdifferent from the scriptural or
the conventional scripturalway of describing it. I mean, we
look at this kind of scriptureand say, yeah, we. That's exactly
what we're talking about. Andyet when you say things like, you
(27:22):
know, when you get how to Sayit the kind of exclusionist attitude
of, well, if you don't believein Jesus, then you can't be saved
and you're condemned toeternal damnation. It's a misunderstanding.
Like, we understand that thatis a misunderstanding of the truth.
(27:45):
Because, you know, I think asyou said, Christ ness is a way of
being an experiencing that weall have access to. And he's not
saying, you know, I'm the onlyone who had. It's like, too bad for
you guys, you know, you haveto wait until you die and if you're
good, then, you know, I'll letyou join me. As opposed to, I'm the
(28:08):
way. Like, this is the way tobe here, this is the way to be. And
when you are like this, whenyou experience like this, then you
sit with God. It's weirdbecause I'm having this really, I'm
having this dual experience ofon the one hand, I'm like choking
up with kind of the intensityof the experience of just talking
(28:32):
about it. And then on theother hand, I'm also expressing in
a very flippant way. Right.Which is, and kind of making fun
of other interpretations ofit. It's hard to kind of point to
the direct experience and wantto caution against kind of the interpretation
(28:59):
that misses the experience. Iguess that's what I'm, I'm pointing
at, right? I'm pointing atthese interpretations, which is like,
once you die, then you'llenter the kingdom in heaven if you
followed all the rules. And I,and I hear my tone, it's, I'm using
a mocking tone. And I kind offeel bad about that because, and
that's a lot of people'sunderstanding of this. But I think
(29:21):
my, my, my concern is thatthat really misses the immediacy
of the kingdom of heaven andthe immediacy of salvation and the
immediacy of born again. And,and, and, and that's the other thing
is like, as often, as oftensaid, of marriage. Right? Marriage.
What is marriage? What's agood marriage is something you do
every day. It's. You recommitto every day. It's not like, oh,
(29:46):
I got my ring, now I'mmarried, now I'm done, I got a wife
now I don't have to worryabout anything. It's like, no, every
day you have to take care ofthings. And so likewise in salvation,
every day and every moment,you have to constantly turn towards
the divine because if youdon't, you forget and you get distracted
(30:09):
and then you go back into hell.
Yeah.
And and this is, I mean, I wastalking earlier about, you know,
my, my recent experience. Ihad a difficult week of being in
a great circumstance andhaving a terrible time just because
of my internal experience andmy forgetting exactly what I'm talking
(30:29):
about right now. And sotalking about it right now is very,
very moving because I knowvery well what hell is like. And
I'm, and now I'm seeing againwhat heaven is like. So having this
kind of direct experiencemakes it difficult to talk about
(30:50):
spiritual kind of scripturalinterpretations and literal, I don't
know, literal interpretationsor descriptions that are not experiential
and that are not in themoment. Basically, it's all about,
oh, this happened back then.Like Christ saved us back then.
Right.
Because he was crucified. Oh,yeah, he's alive now. But really
(31:13):
we're very much focused onwhat happened 2,000 years ago. And
our other focus is whenever itis in the future that we're going
to die, that's the otherimportant part, as opposed to the
present moment. And we'retalking about the same thing. That's,
that's what's frustrating isthat we're talking about the same
thing. We all want to behappy. We all want to have less suffering.
(31:36):
I mean, if you're, if you'rereading scripture, it's because you
want to. Okay, maybe you'reafraid. Maybe you're afraid of what's
gonna happen after you die.Sure. But even that, that's a current
suffering. Your currentsuffering is you're worried about
what's gonna happen after you die.
Yeah.
And I guess in a way, I wouldsuggest that you're just kicking
(31:57):
the can down the road. I say,oh, no, no, I'm fine now. I'm just
worried about what's going tohappen after I die. Anyway, just
some thoughts.
All right, on to the next one.
When I attended the mosque, Ibecame friends with the Imam. And
in one of our discussions, hewas asked whether Muslims worship
(32:20):
the same God as Jews andChristians. And I loved his answer.
He said, I don't know whatother people worship, but I know
that there is only one Godsitting here, all subscribing to
the same denomination. Wedon't know exactly what the person
next to us is worshiping, butthere must only be one God. So if
(32:41):
the worship, even of people ofother faiths is authentic, there
must be some sense in whichwe're all striving to understand
the ground of being, thefundamental force, the love behind
all of this. Look at theiractions. We may find that we have
more in common with them thanwe think.
(33:04):
So this is where I had. It gotme thinking about, you know, regardless
of what we worshipspecifically, it's all, it's all
worshiping the onefundamental. And as long as that
is authentic worship. Meaning,what does that mean? I have an intuition
(33:28):
of what it is, but I don'thave words for it.
I. I would say love versus fear.
Yeah.
You know, if you're, if yourworship is love as opposed to fear.
Yes.
It immediately made me thinkof CS Lewis thing from the Chronicles,
Narnia and the Horse and HisBoy, where he introduces this allegorical.
(33:51):
Right. Obviously the wholething's an allegory. He introduced.
They introduced the Easternreligion. This is this allegorical.
Air quotes. Muslim. I mean,other. It's other, but in the context
of the story, it looks Muslimbecause he's writing for an Anglican
(34:12):
audience. Right. And there'sthis prince who worships this Eastern
religion and he meets Aslan,who represents the Christian religion,
but really is just God. Likenot the Christian God, but. And Aslan
(34:32):
meets this prince. The princeis afraid and like, oh, you're the
enemy because I worship thisother God. And Aslan says, no, if
you, if you, whenever you'retelling the truth, you're worshiping
me whenever you're. Yeah. Andso I think that's what we're saying
is that if you're, if yourworship is love based, then you're
(34:55):
worshiping. Everybody'sworshiping the same God. Yeah.
When he said fundamentalforce, that to me is the essence
that we're talking about. Theessence that all of this is pointing
to is this fundamental forcethat is love. And that is what. What
worship. And I mean, that'sexactly what you just said.
(35:18):
Yeah, well, I mean, I mean.And really I'm taking that from you
because you, I think youintroduced me to the dichotomy of
love and fear. And I think.And is that from conversations with
God? Yes. But what I findinteresting is that, you know, we,
we've talked a lot. Well,maybe today we only did it off mic,
(35:40):
but in the past we've talked alot about and kind of the, the dichotomy
of materialism andspirituality and the fallacy of materialism
and our current, you know,belief in the, the primacy of consciousness
and, and the immaterial asopposed to the material. So consciousness
(36:06):
in our ontology, a la DonaldHoffman, consciousness comes first.
Right. Material existence andspace time are creations of consciousness.
They're rules. They're rulescreated for this incarnation, this
version of Reality perceivedby our consciousness as consciousness.
(36:34):
And what I think isinteresting is to see the physical
corollaries of consciousexperience in the material. Not to
say. And this is where thingsget tricky because materialists want
to say consciousness comesfrom the physical material world
(36:57):
and look, here's, you know,this part of the brain, blah, blah,
blah. But what I'm, what I amreferring to is this, the dichotomy
of love and fear and thecorrelates, physical correlates of
say, sympathetic comparison,pathetic nervous system and all of
(37:18):
those frameworks of physicalwell being. And that when we move
into love experiences, when weare oriented towards love, we have
all these physical systemsactivated. And what am I saying?
Maybe, maybe I'm, maybe I'mkind of stating the obvious or just
(37:40):
looking at the obvious from adifferent perspective. But to me
it's interesting to find thephysical correlates of the experiences
without interpreting that, oh,fear is caused by the parasympathetic.
Right, right.
System. Right. Oh, hate is,Hate is a physiological thing and
(38:04):
that's all it is.
Right.
You know, love is aphysiological thing and that's all
it is. There's no reality tolove when in reality that's all,
that's the basis of reality.And hate and fear are these confusions
of experience that activate orare physically expressed in the parasympathetic
(38:29):
sympathetic nerve, nervoussystem and other systems. I don't
know where I'm going withthat, but it just attracts, it just,
it resonates with me for somereason and it, yeah, it just occurs
to.
Me a lot that thephysiological manifestation is due
to something more fundamentalversus the physiological.
(38:51):
Yes.
Creates.
Right. Yeah, right. That we'vebuilt. That our consciousness has
built this interface toexpress the way we experience things.
Yeah, I mean, well, of course,in the context of this ontology.
Right. The whole purpose ofthis interface, the whole purpose
(39:12):
of material existence is forour consciousnesses to experience
things. Anyway.
Yeah, this is interesting. I,I found this sermon when I heard
it. These things just jumpedout at me. So I'm glad we had a chance
(39:33):
to kind of dig in and, anddiscuss them a little bit. What I
realized I didn't say anythingabout is this is Reverend Bob Fellows.
To credit his, his sermonthere. This was at First Parish Church,
East Derry, New Hampshire.Thank you for joining us for this
conversation. Feel free tocomment and share your views on what
(39:55):
you might have taken away fromthese excerpts or if you disagree
with what we had to say, I'mhappy to hear that as well because
we are open to differentopinions and expressions of truth.
So until next time. Talk toyou later.
Bye now.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom Podcast. Join us
(40:18):
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube, and visit www.ethstudio.com
for more information and content.
Views, interpretations andopinions expressed are not advice
nor official positionspresented on behalf of any organization
or institution. They are forinformational and entertainment purposes
only. Now join Ryan and Peterfor another episode of the Tracking
Wisdom Podcast.
(00:23):
Good morning, everybody, andwelcome back to another episode of
the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.My name is Ryan.
My name is Peter.
So I had an interesting sermonat our local church, and it resonated
pretty specifically to me in alot of the perennial wisdom that
(00:43):
we've been talking about. Andthis was from a couple of weeks ago.
So I pulled out a couple ofrecorded excerpts from that sermon,
and Peter and I are going tolisten to them and comment on. On
what we take away from them.The three main themes that came across
with this was, number one, theidea that nobody has a monopoly on
(01:04):
the truth, and about theimportance of exploring a variety
of different perspectives. Thesecond point came in, this was actually
on Trinity Sunday, and therewas the pastor's presentation of
the challenge of understandingthe Trinity and monotheism. And then
(01:26):
the third was about still sortof tied to monotheism and worshiping
of the one God, with aninteresting perspective about authentic
worship and an anecdote fromthe pastor that he had through an
interfaith community and afriend of his that was the imam of
(01:49):
the local Muslim. What do theycall that?
Congregation.
Congregation, sure. Sorry,guys. And basically weaving in the
perennial wisdom that we'vebeen talking about into these. Oh,
and I. And I promise from lastepisode, I had an interesting thought
related to the authenticworship regarding God being all things
(02:15):
from the perspective of thisauthentic worship, what it can mean
to worship a variety ofdifferent, say, manifestations of
God within the material world.Okay, so we'll listen to the first
one. And here we go.
I saw a cartoon I really likedthat showed Jesus on top of a hill
(02:36):
and disciples sitting on theground at the bottom of the hill.
And Jesus is saying, nowlisten carefully. I don't want four
versions of this. But havingfour versions helps us to get to
the truth. No one person herehas the truth, but by coming together
and engaging in dialogue, wecan get closer to the truth. So four
(03:01):
versions is a good way to getcloser to the truth. Read all four.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.See where they differ, See where
they're similar. Try to getcloser to the truth that way. How
can we read Scripture and knowexactly what it means to us? Because
you turn to the person next toyou and they'll get a different meaning
from it. So we need to talkwith each other and listen and maybe
(03:26):
hear Something that we didn'tsee the first time on our reading,
but that's how we get closerto the truth. This is a phrase that
is used by progressivetheologians often. And as far as
I can tell, it comes from asong written by a rapper musician
named Michael Franti, who's aChristian. And here's the phrase
(03:49):
God is too big for just one religion.
So I actually pasted a coupleof that was spread out throughout,
but I found them related. Andwhat I heard in this specifically
was kind of what we weretalking about with the universalist
perennialism perspective andthe importance of a variety of teachings
(04:14):
and hearing the message fromin different ways and in different
lenses, because the truth isbigger than all of it. And the importance
in continuing dialogue acrossnot just faiths, but with perspectives
of all kinds. It is thepursuit of getting closer to the
(04:36):
truth. Like, even after that,you don't arrive at the absolute
truth. We can't fully graspand know the absolute truth. But
in engaging in that activity,we get closer. And I think we've.
We've touched on somethingsimilar to that. The language sounded
familiar in a way that, Idon't know. In other discussions,
(04:58):
I feel like we've talked with.It's not about discovering the truth,
but getting closer, like. Likechipping away. I think it also speaks
to encouraging, not just beingopen to. And actually he does speak
a little bit more to this thatI cut out. But it's not just about
(05:21):
tolerating other views.
Right.
But to truly open our heartsand minds to hearing and considering
alternate views in a way thatalso ties to our previous episode,
where it's conceivablesomebody feels friction hearing the
Ten Commandments presented ina way that we did, you know, and
(05:46):
it's okay if there's frictionthere, and it's okay if you disagree.
I think that it's importantfor all of us to be open to hearing
the message in different ways.
I think it doesn't mean thatwe have to accept all the versions.
I mean, so. So what I'm seeinghere is we have four people who wrote
(06:09):
four accounts, right? And eachof them heard what Jesus said from
their own experience becausethey all had separate lives prior
to that. And so they'rebringing different context and experience
specifically to this talk. Andthen they wrote their gospels and
(06:33):
they're each going to expresswhat they experience in their own
way. So you've got kind of adouble filter in a way of how this
could be heard. And, you know,I guess to the point is none of it
is the absolute truth. It's.It's a way of expressing what they
(06:56):
experienced at the time andobviously further filtered for, you
know, however long it tookthem to actually write it right after
the actual event. So. Andthen, of course, you know, memory
being what it is, it'soverlaid with subsequent experiences.
I like what you said about thefirst bit, you know, Phil. So I mean,
(07:19):
just as we. Anytime we haveour discussion, we can hear the same
thing and come away with findpriority and importance and nuances
that resonate quite the sameway as the other person. All right,
let's go to the next one.
(07:39):
So the Trinity is challengingthe idea that Christ is also God.
We are monotheistic and yet wehave a trinity. But to others, to
Unitarians, to Muslims, maybeto some Jews, it might seem like
three gods. But myinterpretation is that the Creator,
the Christ and the Holy Spiritare aspects of one God. It's not
(08:03):
that for me, that at a pointin time, God had a son. Son wasn't
there before, no Jesus. Nowall of a sudden you have Jesus showing
up. That's why the title of mysermon is Always There. And the reading
from Proverbs includes theverse, I was always there, always
there from the beginning.Because Christ is a concept. Yes,
(08:24):
Jesus was a man, but Jesus wasthe Christ. And Christ has always
been there, didn't just showup one day. And the idea that then
when the Son went to heaven,he left behind the Holy Spirit. There
was no Holy Spirit before. Idon't believe that either. The Holy
Spirit has always been there.We sometimes discover things that
were always there, and so wethink that they're new.
(08:48):
This was interesting to me. Iliked that very last bit, which was
just because we recognize ordiscover something doesn't mean it
hasn't always been there. Iagree that when we talk about God,
Christ and the Holy Spirit,that we are discussing aspects which,
(09:13):
you know, I would like for youto ask your question again that you
asked after or off mic. But myunderstanding or my belief in the
oneness of creation doesn'tpreclude aspects, I guess, you know,
perspectives. Just as I wouldsay that from our existence, right,
(09:36):
that we are still all one. Weare still one with the Creator. We
are unique perspectives or thewaves in the ocean, you know, all
those metaphors. And yet weare one, you know, and just like
a tree is a perspective and ahuman is a perspective and a rock
(09:59):
is perspective, all that isstill God. So it's not conflicting
for me personally to think ofa God, God and Christness and a Holy
Spirit ness. But I also, in away feel. I guess I reject, again,
(10:25):
kind of this personificationof it. You know what I mean? And
like, Jesus is presentedthrough the Gospels and through his
ministry as embodying theChrist ness, but the Christ ness
is not Jesus.
Yeah. And I mean, I, you know,largely agree with what you're saying.
(10:48):
And I find this, you know, Iagree that this, the Trinity is challenging.
Not in that you can't talkabout three, not that you can't talk
about God in three separate ways.
Right.
Obviously that's possible. Imean, that's not particularly challenging.
(11:08):
I think one thing for me iswhy are we locked in what. You know,
I mean, it's what. It's one ofour central theses, that there are
experiences of the truth thatpeople try to share and codify. And
then you get locked into thisone version. And so it's like, oh,
(11:30):
no, it's only three. It's nottwo. It's not four. It's not 20.
You know, it's like, why three?
Right?
And clearly it's aninstitution. I mean, it's a historical
reason. It's not becausethere's something inherently in that.
You know, I'm thinking aboutMonty Python, the whole hand grenade.
Right. You shall count tothree, not four, not, you know, two.
(11:54):
So that I find a little. Justintellectually challenged. It's like
Hawaii. Right? And I mean,clearly, if you look at it as a.
What do you call it,comparative religion scholar or something,
you know, you'll find somehistorical reason, some causation
for. And this is when it gotlocked into three. And that's. And
(12:15):
then that's what we have now.But, you know, it just raises this
intellectual question of, oh,okay, I can see why that he has.
That God has different aspectsthat we can talk about. We can continue
to. As God's infinite, we cancontinue to talk. So why three? You
know, so there's that. There'sthat intellectual kind of dissonance
for me. And then the otherchallenge I find is Christ versus
(12:42):
Jesus. Right, right. Becausemy understanding, it's absolutely
essential that Jesus washuman. And maybe that's more of a
process issue, right. ThatChrist had to go the process of incarnating
and being crucified and beingresurrected. And so Jesus was just
(13:06):
part of the process. Jesus isnot. Not the definition of Christ.
Right.
And so. And this is where I'ma little. This is where I'm, you
know, theologically weak. It'slike, oh, well, what is Christ? I
mean, I know, Christ issavior, but you know, I don't have
very deep understanding ofwhat, what is Christ as a concept.
(13:27):
That all has been, you know, Ican, I'm familiar with some of the
scripture, like I'm the Wordand the Word was with God, you know,
all that. I don't know what itmeans. Right, right. I know the words.
And so it's like, oh yeah,yeah, I know that Christ was in the
beginning. Yeah, I knew that,like, I knew that Christ didn't show
up with Jesus. But then itraises all these questions which
(13:49):
I don't, I'm not reallyfamiliar with. So I find that a little
challenging. But I mean, Ithink it's interesting that to have
this recognition. Oh yeah,okay. Jesus is part of the process
of Christ from the beginningthrough, you know, the Jewish people
(14:10):
into the birth of, and thecrucifixion and the resurrection
and the, whatever we call itnow. Right. I guess he is risen.
He is alive. Christ is alive.I keep, I, I seen this recently.
But anyway, so yeah, it'sinteresting. And obviously, you know,
(14:30):
of course, as a sermon, Imean, this is in the context of this
faith.
Right.
It's not a discussion of, thisis not really a theological discussion,
which I'm kind of like, oh, Idon't, I don't get it because I'm
not part of this faithcommunities. I don't have all the
context maybe that, you know,other people are bringing to it or
that the, the intendedaudience is bringing, is bringing
(14:55):
to this sermon.
It seems that, and this is notto criticize, but just an observation
that, and we don't have to getdeep on institutional stuff. I know
we've, we've touched on itbefore and we rehash some of it,
but we don't want to go offthe rails with it. Right. It's not
(15:16):
the point. But it does seemthat there was a point in time where
the institution had a conflictto have to reconcile from the Ten
Commandments that there shallbe no other God to this essentially
(15:37):
at the time self proclaimed,he didn't proclaim so much. But you
know, the idea that of thedivinity of Jesus happened after,
you know, and having toreconcile, okay, so now how do we
reconcile that? And then Jesusbrought up this idea of the Holy
(15:57):
Spirit. So it almost is likethis game in a way of trying to say,
well, you know, it is, there'sonly one God. And our historical
scriptures touched on theseother things that make it confusing.
So this is how we fix that.But I agree with you that ultimately
it's not about three, it'sabout the vastness of, of God.
(16:22):
Right.
In each perspective.
I mean, so we know clearlybefore the time of Jesus there was
a messianic prophecy.
Yes.
So but we don't know betweenthe two of us what that is. We don't
know the specifics of themessianic prophecy. So we don't know
what that version of Christis. I mean, that is a version of.
(16:47):
Or not.
I mean, so that's the thing.And this is what brought Jesus so
much and post crucifixionconflict between the mainstream Jewish
culture and I think probablywhat created, not division, but you
(17:09):
know, a branch, so to speak. Imean, essentially Christianity is
kind of a branch off ofJudaism. Was the going interpretation
based off of my ownunderstanding of the historical scriptures,
was the Messiah being thedeliverer of the Jewish people from
(17:30):
oppression. And the imagerywas of a strong, you know, almost
militaristic type takeover.And the ultimate presentation of
Jesus as the Messiah conflictswith that. And as far as I understand,
(17:51):
Judaism is still kind ofwaiting for the Messiah.
Right.
So like there's still thatbipolar version or vision of what
the salvation looks like. Nowto me, maybe this is just because.
No, I don't think it is. I wasgoing to say maybe it's just because
(18:11):
I have historical exposure toChristianity. But to me, this highlights
the ongoing misunderstandingor anthropomorphization of the divine,
that liberation looks likethis in materialist human culture.
(18:34):
So that must be what it means.But when we're thinking about the
divine and the divine beingthis embodiment of love and compassion,
and it's not likely to looklike that.
Well, I mean, so we'reliterally talking about prophecy,
which is inherentlyproblematic because it's bound to
(18:59):
have levels of symbolism. So,you know, you said a military, militaristic
kind of character. And I thinkthe term is king. Right? A king.
Well, what does king mean?Right. Does it mean someone who wears
a golden crown? Obviously thatwas part of the crucifixion was the
(19:22):
mockery of him being the kingand given the crown of thorns. But
there's this inherently, Ithink inherently symbolic language
of prophecy. I mean, is thatkind of the definition of prophecy?
It's like it's interpretive,it is not literal. So first is understanding
(19:45):
that there was messianicprophecy, that the church, I mean
basically the church isfounded on this Judaic prophecy.
And then of course theinterpretation that this is it, this
is the fulfillment of theprophecy versus the Jewish interpretation
(20:09):
of like oh, no, that was justanother teacher. Right. Great guy.
Not the Messiah. And then. Andthen subsequent. I mean, I think
there. There have been acouple of rabbis at least, that have
been identified as the Messiahas well. You know, obviously fringe
Judaism. But there have beenat least one rabbi, I think there's
(20:31):
one live that, you know, hisfollowers say, oh, he's the Messiah.
So there's always. I mean,it's kind of a. What's the word?
A matter of opinion or like,how many people have this opinion
kind of thing. And then howmuch power do those people end up
(20:51):
having? It's tricky to try tobe very definitive about it.
Sure.
Right. And then. And then, ofcourse, kind of by definition, it
comes down to faith. And thenwhat is that? Right. What is faith?
And I think, you know, we'vetouched on this before of like, well,
(21:11):
is faith, you know, I have tobelieve what I believe. Or is faith
a trust in. You know, like,there can be a kind of faith that
says, yes, Jesus was theMessiah and is alive and I'm saved,
(21:33):
and I feel this and I trust itas being true because that's my experience
of it versus you have tobelieve this.
Right.
You know, and I have tobelieve this, otherwise I will go
to hell. Those are really, Ithink, qualitatively different expressions
of faith. So.
(21:54):
Yeah, something you said mademe want to share this. I don't. I
think it's relevant. I guesswe'll see where it goes. When you
were talking, you were talkingabout, you know, in the beginning
was the Word and this whole.That whole concept, the way I perceive
or recognize Christ is more astate of being and recognition of
(22:21):
the divine within. So whenJesus says something like, I and
the Father are one, I don'tthink is him actually saying only
I and the Father are one.Right. That is him attempting to
communicate this oneness ofeverything and everyone. And, you
(22:44):
know, he's saying there'snothing inherently special about
him, that this exists withinall of us. And when I think of in
the beginning and I think ofChrist as the Word, I think of God
being the consciousness andthe awareness, Christ the child being
(23:10):
the imagination, the creationthrough, thought through, you know,
Word, air quotes, Word, thethought. And then that manifests
into experience. And the HolySpirit is that inner wisdom, inner
intuition that we have fromthe divine. And these are all God,
(23:34):
these are all within us. It'snot Jesus specifically. It's not.
But that these are all theelements of the divine of which we
have access to and participatewith in this version of creation
and dreaming and bringing tofruition the experiences, the multitude
of experiences by which welearn about ourselves and by which
(23:58):
God would also learn. And whenwe think God became man, God has
always been man. God is thatawareness that's within us and has
always been experiencingeverything that we experience. And
this teacher, this. I mean, itdoesn't mean that he didn't create
(24:20):
salvation and wasn'tnecessarily the Messiah, but that
the teaching of the Messiah isthat he didn't embody Jesus and that
was God's experience of beinghuman. God experiences being human
every single day.
Yes. I mean, and that's. So Ithink, you know, in. In the awakening
(24:45):
community as. We can talkabout these things as direct experience.
And so the. The phrase thatcame to mind was kingdom come or
heaven on earth that people onawakening journeys understand they've
(25:06):
had glimpses of, right? Oh,yeah, I'm not waiting for heaven.
I'm not looking for heaven. Isee how this is heaven. And it's
just I get distracted, right?Which changes the whole story. And
likewise, I see how this ishell because I'm distracted, because
I'm not turned towards God.I'm turned away from God, meaning
(25:29):
I'm focused on my ego self andmy materialistic framework of reality.
And that is keeping me inhell. That is like persistent repetitive
suffering, which is hell.There is no other, you know, and
so this is heaven and this ishell right now. It's not this. And,
(25:54):
and, and the, the eternity is.I mean, we know that suffering is
eternal. Like, when we'resuffering it, it. We cannot see the
end, right? That is eternity.And likewise, when we're in deep
realization, we also seeeternity. And we don't say like,
(26:19):
oh, this is gonna be oversoon. It's like, no, oh, this is
it. This is what is alwayshere and has always been, and this
is eternal. And so what am Isaying? I'm saying that in this.
I'm calling a community withkind of like circles of conversation
(26:40):
of people sharing experience.We know these things. These are common.
These are. These are mutualexperiences that we can share and
talk about or even share inreal time. And that's different from.
(27:00):
I don't say it's a different.The description of that in the way
I'm talking about it isdifferent from the scriptural or
the conventional scripturalway of describing it. I mean, we
look at this kind of scriptureand say, yeah, we. That's exactly
what we're talking about. Andyet when you say things like, you
(27:22):
know, when you get how to Sayit the kind of exclusionist attitude
of, well, if you don't believein Jesus, then you can't be saved
and you're condemned toeternal damnation. It's a misunderstanding.
Like, we understand that thatis a misunderstanding of the truth.
(27:45):
Because, you know, I think asyou said, Christ ness is a way of
being an experiencing that weall have access to. And he's not
saying, you know, I'm the onlyone who had. It's like, too bad for
you guys, you know, you haveto wait until you die and if you're
good, then, you know, I'll letyou join me. As opposed to, I'm the
(28:08):
way. Like, this is the way tobe here, this is the way to be. And
when you are like this, whenyou experience like this, then you
sit with God. It's weirdbecause I'm having this really, I'm
having this dual experience ofon the one hand, I'm like choking
up with kind of the intensityof the experience of just talking
(28:32):
about it. And then on theother hand, I'm also expressing in
a very flippant way. Right.Which is, and kind of making fun
of other interpretations ofit. It's hard to kind of point to
the direct experience and wantto caution against kind of the interpretation
(28:59):
that misses the experience. Iguess that's what I'm, I'm pointing
at, right? I'm pointing atthese interpretations, which is like,
once you die, then you'llenter the kingdom in heaven if you
followed all the rules. And I,and I hear my tone, it's, I'm using
a mocking tone. And I kind offeel bad about that because, and
that's a lot of people'sunderstanding of this. But I think
(29:21):
my, my, my concern is thatthat really misses the immediacy
of the kingdom of heaven andthe immediacy of salvation and the
immediacy of born again. And,and, and, and that's the other thing
is like, as often, as oftensaid, of marriage. Right? Marriage.
What is marriage? What's agood marriage is something you do
every day. It's. You recommitto every day. It's not like, oh,
(29:46):
I got my ring, now I'mmarried, now I'm done, I got a wife
now I don't have to worryabout anything. It's like, no, every
day you have to take care ofthings. And so likewise in salvation,
every day and every moment,you have to constantly turn towards
the divine because if youdon't, you forget and you get distracted
(30:09):
and then you go back into hell.
Yeah.
And and this is, I mean, I wastalking earlier about, you know,
my, my recent experience. Ihad a difficult week of being in
a great circumstance andhaving a terrible time just because
of my internal experience andmy forgetting exactly what I'm talking
(30:29):
about right now. And sotalking about it right now is very,
very moving because I knowvery well what hell is like. And
I'm, and now I'm seeing againwhat heaven is like. So having this
kind of direct experiencemakes it difficult to talk about
(30:50):
spiritual kind of scripturalinterpretations and literal, I don't
know, literal interpretationsor descriptions that are not experiential
and that are not in themoment. Basically, it's all about,
oh, this happened back then.Like Christ saved us back then.
Right.
Because he was crucified. Oh,yeah, he's alive now. But really
(31:13):
we're very much focused onwhat happened 2,000 years ago. And
our other focus is whenever itis in the future that we're going
to die, that's the otherimportant part, as opposed to the
present moment. And we'retalking about the same thing. That's,
that's what's frustrating isthat we're talking about the same
thing. We all want to behappy. We all want to have less suffering.
(31:36):
I mean, if you're, if you'rereading scripture, it's because you
want to. Okay, maybe you'reafraid. Maybe you're afraid of what's
gonna happen after you die.Sure. But even that, that's a current
suffering. Your currentsuffering is you're worried about
what's gonna happen after you die.
Yeah.
And I guess in a way, I wouldsuggest that you're just kicking
(31:57):
the can down the road. I say,oh, no, no, I'm fine now. I'm just
worried about what's going tohappen after I die. Anyway, just
some thoughts.
All right, on to the next one.
When I attended the mosque, Ibecame friends with the Imam. And
in one of our discussions, hewas asked whether Muslims worship
(32:20):
the same God as Jews andChristians. And I loved his answer.
He said, I don't know whatother people worship, but I know
that there is only one Godsitting here, all subscribing to
the same denomination. Wedon't know exactly what the person
next to us is worshiping, butthere must only be one God. So if
(32:41):
the worship, even of people ofother faiths is authentic, there
must be some sense in whichwe're all striving to understand
the ground of being, thefundamental force, the love behind
all of this. Look at theiractions. We may find that we have
more in common with them thanwe think.
(33:04):
So this is where I had. It gotme thinking about, you know, regardless
of what we worshipspecifically, it's all, it's all
worshiping the onefundamental. And as long as that
is authentic worship. Meaning,what does that mean? I have an intuition
(33:28):
of what it is, but I don'thave words for it.
I. I would say love versus fear.
Yeah.
You know, if you're, if yourworship is love as opposed to fear.
Yes.
It immediately made me thinkof CS Lewis thing from the Chronicles,
Narnia and the Horse and HisBoy, where he introduces this allegorical.
(33:51):
Right. Obviously the wholething's an allegory. He introduced.
They introduced the Easternreligion. This is this allegorical.
Air quotes. Muslim. I mean,other. It's other, but in the context
of the story, it looks Muslimbecause he's writing for an Anglican
(34:12):
audience. Right. And there'sthis prince who worships this Eastern
religion and he meets Aslan,who represents the Christian religion,
but really is just God. Likenot the Christian God, but. And Aslan
(34:32):
meets this prince. The princeis afraid and like, oh, you're the
enemy because I worship thisother God. And Aslan says, no, if
you, if you, whenever you'retelling the truth, you're worshiping
me whenever you're. Yeah. Andso I think that's what we're saying
is that if you're, if yourworship is love based, then you're
(34:55):
worshiping. Everybody'sworshiping the same God. Yeah.
When he said fundamentalforce, that to me is the essence
that we're talking about. Theessence that all of this is pointing
to is this fundamental forcethat is love. And that is what. What
worship. And I mean, that'sexactly what you just said.
(35:18):
Yeah, well, I mean, I mean.And really I'm taking that from you
because you, I think youintroduced me to the dichotomy of
love and fear. And I think.And is that from conversations with
God? Yes. But what I findinteresting is that, you know, we,
we've talked a lot. Well,maybe today we only did it off mic,
(35:40):
but in the past we've talked alot about and kind of the, the dichotomy
of materialism andspirituality and the fallacy of materialism
and our current, you know,belief in the, the primacy of consciousness
and, and the immaterial asopposed to the material. So consciousness
(36:06):
in our ontology, a la DonaldHoffman, consciousness comes first.
Right. Material existence andspace time are creations of consciousness.
They're rules. They're rulescreated for this incarnation, this
version of Reality perceivedby our consciousness as consciousness.
(36:34):
And what I think isinteresting is to see the physical
corollaries of consciousexperience in the material. Not to
say. And this is where thingsget tricky because materialists want
to say consciousness comesfrom the physical material world
(36:57):
and look, here's, you know,this part of the brain, blah, blah,
blah. But what I'm, what I amreferring to is this, the dichotomy
of love and fear and thecorrelates, physical correlates of
say, sympathetic comparison,pathetic nervous system and all of
(37:18):
those frameworks of physicalwell being. And that when we move
into love experiences, when weare oriented towards love, we have
all these physical systemsactivated. And what am I saying?
Maybe, maybe I'm, maybe I'mkind of stating the obvious or just
(37:40):
looking at the obvious from adifferent perspective. But to me
it's interesting to find thephysical correlates of the experiences
without interpreting that, oh,fear is caused by the parasympathetic.
Right, right.
System. Right. Oh, hate is,Hate is a physiological thing and
(38:04):
that's all it is.
Right.
You know, love is aphysiological thing and that's all
it is. There's no reality tolove when in reality that's all,
that's the basis of reality.And hate and fear are these confusions
of experience that activate orare physically expressed in the parasympathetic
(38:29):
sympathetic nerve, nervoussystem and other systems. I don't
know where I'm going withthat, but it just attracts, it just,
it resonates with me for somereason and it, yeah, it just occurs
to.
Me a lot that thephysiological manifestation is due
to something more fundamentalversus the physiological.
(38:51):
Yes.
Creates.
Right. Yeah, right. That we'vebuilt. That our consciousness has
built this interface toexpress the way we experience things.
Yeah, I mean, well, of course,in the context of this ontology.
Right. The whole purpose ofthis interface, the whole purpose
(39:12):
of material existence is forour consciousnesses to experience
things. Anyway.
Yeah, this is interesting. I,I found this sermon when I heard
it. These things just jumpedout at me. So I'm glad we had a chance
(39:33):
to kind of dig in and, anddiscuss them a little bit. What I
realized I didn't say anythingabout is this is Reverend Bob Fellows.
To credit his, his sermonthere. This was at First Parish Church,
East Derry, New Hampshire.Thank you for joining us for this
conversation. Feel free tocomment and share your views on what
(39:55):
you might have taken away fromthese excerpts or if you disagree
with what we had to say, I'mhappy to hear that as well because
we are open to differentopinions and expressions of truth.
So until next time. Talk toyou later.
Bye now.
Bye.
Thank you for listening to theTracking Wisdom Podcast. Join us
(40:18):
next time as we continue thediscussion. Don't forget to follow
us on Facebook, Instagram andYouTube, and visit www.ethstudio.com
for more information and content.
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