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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 2/11/2008 1:46 PM (GMT -6)

http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kellmeyer/050207

(o)

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/11/2008 9:46 PM (GMT -6)

Kellmeyer:"God's love is not like my father's love. God is not a family of persons. Human families have nothing in common with God. The relationship between God and man is the relationship between master and slave. He loves us as a master loves his slave, cares for us as a master cares for his slave, we owe him obedience as a slave owes his master, not as a son owes his father." This is the reply of the Muslim to that particular Christian evangelistic approach This is, perhaps, why the Muslim world is so hard to evangelize."

Hmmmm...

Sufism

The Six Subtleties
Realities of The Heart:Drawing from Qur'anic verses, virtually all Sufis distinguish Lataif-e-Sitta (The Six Subtleties), Nafs, Qalb, Ruh, Sirr, Khafi & Akhfa. These lataif (singular : latifa) designate various psychospiritual "organs", or faculties of sensory perception.

Sufic development involves the awakening of these spiritual centers of perception that lie dormant in an individual. Each center is associated with a particular color and general area of the body, often with a particular prophet, and varies from order to order. The help of a guide is considered necessary to help activate these centers. After undergoing this process, the dervish is said to reach a certain type of "completion."

The person gets acquainted with the lataif one by one by Muraqaba (Sufi meditation), Dhikr (Remembrance of God) and purification of one's psyche of negative thoughts, emotions, and actions. Loving God and one's fellow, irrespective of his or her race, religion or nationality, and without consideration for any possible reward, is the key to ascension according to Sufis.

These six "organs" or faculties: Nafs, Qalb, Ruh, Sirr, Khafi & Akhfa, and the purificative activities applied to them, contain the basic orthodox Sufi philosophy. The purification of the elementary passionate nature (Tazkiya-I-Nafs), followed by cleansing of the spiritual heart so that it may acquire a mirror-like purity of reflection (Tazkiya-I-Qalb) and become the receptacle of God's love (Ishq) and illumination of the spirit (Tajjali-I-Ruh). This process is fortified by emptying of egoic drives (Taqliyya-I-Sirr) and remembrance of God's attributes (Dhikr), and completion of journey by purification of the last two faculties, Khafi and Akhfa.

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Sufi Psychology

In Sufi psychology the heart refers to the spiritual heart or qalb, not the physical organ. It is this spiritual heart that contains the deeper intelligence and wisdom. It holds the Divine spark or spirit & is the place of gnosis and deep spiritual knowledge. In Sufism, the goal is to develop a heart that is sincere, loving and compassionate, and to develop the heart's intelligence, which is deeper, and more grounded than the rational, abstract intelligence of the mind. Just as the physical heart supplies blood to the body, the spiritual heart nourishes the soul with wisdom and spiritual light, and it also purifies the gross personality traits. According to Sufic psychology emotions are from the self or nafs, not from the heart.

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I sure see some connecting points.

Do y'all?

In the Spirit of Christ, BE Christ to every "Christ" you see when you look at yourself and other human beings. "Insofar as you've done to the least of these..."

Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 2/11/2008 9:02:12 PM (GMT-6)

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/11/2008 9:51 PM (GMT -6)

Mysticism, baby... icon_bandit

God is love.

In the Spirit of Christ, BE Christ to every "Christ" you see when you look at yourself and other human beings. "Insofar as you've done to the least of these..."

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/11/2008 10:25 PM (GMT -6)

Just for kicks...

Buddhism
“All the roots of goodness of all … Bodhisattvas and all Tathagatas have as their foundation Loving-kindness (maitri)… If any person asks about the root of any aspect of good, say that it is Loving-kindness … Loving-kindness is Mahayana. Mahayana is Loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is the Tathagata. The Tathagata is Loving-kindness … Loving-kindness is the Buddha-dhatu of all beings…. Loving-kindness is the Self. The Self is Dharma. Dharma is the Sangha. The Sangha is Loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is the Tathagata…. Loving-kindness is the Immortal (amrta). The Immortal is Loving-kindness…. Loving-kindness is the Supreme Way of all Bodhisattvas. The Way is Loving-kindness. Loving-kindness is the Tathagata …. Loving-kindness is the limitless world of the Blessed Buddha. The limitless world is Loving-kindness. Know that Loving-kindness is the Tathagata."
--Shakyamuni Buddha

Hinduism--Bhakti Yoga's Ultimate Goal
The forces that cause creation sustain and maintain that which has become created and eventually cause the destruction of that which was created – named Brahman, by the Upanishads – permeate everything in the Creation. Brahman is the self creating force that is in all that has a name and form as well as that which remains formless and nameless.

The Bhagavata Purana describes three different levels of Brahman realisation. The first is an impersonal state of blissful consciousness, similar to nirvana where one is aware of the great universal Brahman effulgence permeating everything; the second is classified as Paramatma realisation, wherein one is actually able to see the Form of Godhead alongside one's own soul (atma); the third and ultimate realisation is described as Bhagavan, in this state one has a direct loving relationship with The Supreme Personality of Godhead himself, in one or more of His transcendental forms.

The main difference between bhakti philosophy and all others is that the goal is also the means of attaining the goal. In other words, bhakti, devotional service to the Supreme, is attained by engaging in devotional service to the Supreme. The difference between the starting and concluding stages is that in the beginning the activity of bhakti is a forced engagement, whereas in the conclusion it is a spontaneous, loving reciprocation.

*******************

I see connecting points here too...

In the Spirit of Christ, BE Christ to every "Christ" you see when you look at yourself and other human beings. "Insofar as you've done to the least of these..."

Post Edited (Imago Dei) : 2/11/2008 9:30:06 PM (GMT-6)

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/11/2008 10:31 PM (GMT -6)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

In the Spirit of Christ, BE Christ to every "Christ" you see when you look at yourself and other human beings. "Insofar as you've done to the least of these..."

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 2/12/2008 8:43 AM (GMT -6)

You wanna talk about a "redemptive analogy" or "point of contact"?

Come ON!

In the Spirit of Christ, BE Christ to every "Christ" you see when you look at yourself and other human beings. "Insofar as you've done to the least of these..."

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 2/12/2008 9:21 AM (GMT -6)

D's already made his thread-ly migration to the topic of Budhism....so I can't think this thread isn't already a bit derailed. lol.

Soooooooo.......

Let me tell the REASON behind beginning this thread:

A Sunday night discussion group of my Reformed church ussually considers 'ethics' topics. But next week the eighty-something retired college dean will invite a man he met while visiting a Mosque for his Wheaton College class project on Islam and Christianity. The moslem man is a former IMAM of a Dupage county mosque.

The thing that should be interesting is how Calvinism probably has SOME of its parts from Islam instead of historical Christianity. So there will probably be some things that Reformed Christianity and Islam have in common just because they do -- like, that God exists, and some things that they share because of a common root in Islam -- like soli scriptura (which is not original with Christianity), and some things in which Reformed and all flavors of Christianity differ from Islam.

Should be interesting.

(o)

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 2/12/2008 9:22 AM (GMT -6)

Imago Dei said...
You wanna talk about a "redemptive analogy" or "point of contact"?

????

(o)

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 2/12/2008 9:27 AM (GMT -6)

THIS is in the ball park...

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2008/02/11/how-can-we-give-thanks/

How Can We Give Thanks?

. . .Most specifically I want to write on what seem to me necessary elements in giving thanks to God. If giving thanks to God is difficult these may be places to begin or to which to give attention.

1. We must believe that God is good.

2. I must believe that His will for me is good.

3. I must believe that the goodness of God is without limit.

4. I must believe that God is good and know this on the deepest personal level.

CLICK ABOVE FOR THE ARTICLE.

(o)

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