Wisdom Connections

Rosemary opened with a brief outline of what our Spiritual Exploration Group is all about: mainly we gather for discussion; dogma has no place in what we are exploring. While we may be seeking the Truth, we know that the truths of our experiences are only that, true for what we observe and feel, true in the moment for ourselves; and they may have little or no relevance to  another’s truth.

We then moved to forming a list (a short one) of the names or how we refer to and talk about “something Bigger.” I have included the list here as information. I have also added a few for the sake of completion, mostly as the feminine counterpart to the masculine names listed:

God
Wakan-tanka
The Nameless
The Universe
Spirit
Source
Jehovah
Wisdom
Love
Light
Freedom
Allah
Infinity
The Way (Tao)
All That Is
Energy
Goddess
The Divine
Gaia
Siva/Parvathi/Shakthi/Kali/Durga
Ganesha
Brahma/Saraswathi
Vishnu/Lakshmi
The Enlightened One
Mary
Divine Mother
The I AM
The Force
God the Father
Jesus
Sophia
Krishna (an emanation of Vishnu)
Yahweh
Ram (another emanation of Vishnu)
Quan Yin
Tara
Zeus
Jupiter
Apollo
Creator

We concluded from this exercise that it is really not all that important to give a name to this experience which we have all had. For that is truly what this is and it is an individual thing…we could come up with billions of names for each human has her own experiences of the divine. I am reminded of the first chapter of the Taoteching: “The way that become a way is not the Immortal Way, The name that becomes a name is not the Immortal Name…” As soon as we try to name something we limit it; to name the Divine is to limit the limitless!

We also had a good discussion about “judgement” and “discernment.” And this led to an exploration of “love” as the opposite of “fear”…

I have to admit that my notes are very brief; I think I was too engaged in the discussion to record it very well. So, if anyone wants to fill in here please feel free! Let’s keep the discussion going until we meet again…