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Thitteen (838-840)
Vaar Sat (841-843)
Chhant (843-848)
Vaar Bilaaval (849-855)
Bhagat Bani (855-858)
ਰਾਗੁ ਗੋਂਡ | Raag Gond
Gurbani (859-869)
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Kaafee (1014-1016)
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Solhe (1020-1033)
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Gurbani (1118-1123)
Bhagat Bani (1123-1124)
ਰਾਗੁ ਭੈਰਉ | Raag Bhairo
Gurbani (1125-1152)
Partaal (1153)
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Chhant (1236-1237)
Vaar Saarang (1237-1253)
ਰਾਗੁ ਮਲਾਰ | Raag Malaar
Gurbani (1254-1293)
Partaal (1265-1273)
Ashtpadiyan (1273-1278)
Chhant (1278)
Vaar Malaar (1278-91)
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Gurbani (1294-96)
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One Infinite Creator In Sikhism, What Does It Mean?
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<blockquote data-quote="Archived_member15" data-source="post: 162436" data-attributes="member: 17438"><p>My dear Scarlet mundahug</p><p> </p><p>I agree! We never fathom or understand God as God is is in Itself - that is as it is in its Essence. <span style="font-family: 'Arial'">The great mystic St John of the Cross (1542 – 1591) wrote "<strong>That thou mayest know <em>everything</em>, <em>seek</em> to know <em>nothing</em></strong>". St Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) also advocated the <span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="color: #000000">via negativa because God is not an object in the universe and it is not possible to describe the Deus absconditus with words or to grasp Supreme Reality with our finite intelligence. The highest form of knowledge is not via the intellect but through love, which pierces the great cloud of unknowing between ourselves and God. Where our finite intellect fails to comprehend the Infinite God, love fills the gap and draws us to the bosom of our creator. As Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) explained, "<strong>I know, that everything which I know, is not God, and that everything I conceive, is no comparison to Him</strong>, <strong>but rather He excels it. God is unknowable by Human Beings; all that we can really know is that we are ignorant, so our knowledge of God is what He is not. Therefore God is <em><u>nothing</u></em>.</strong>" </span></span></span></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="color: #000000">Yes you read that - Catholics regard God as "NOTHING" literally "NO-THING". </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="color: #000000">God's essence remains eternally unknowable and impenetrable. However, it is clear that God has revealed Himself to man and is encountered by man. It is through God's energies that we encounter God. Because God does not change, else we slip into a deistic conception of the Divine, a distant God who does not reveal himself to man through revelations. God's energies are eternal. Take, for example, God's love. God has never been without love, so God's love must be eternal. And these 'energies' are knowable, while his Essence is not. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="color: #000000">When I speak about God's Essence I'm essentially speaking of His divinity, His (and forgive me the male pronoun which is not indicative of gender at all) <em>'God-ness'</em> or <em>'Is-ness'</em>. When I speak of His energies I am speaking of His actions. To understand the first we'd have to be God Himself, because only He has the capacity to understand that and therefore He IS, as the God, wholly transcendent and otherly. But, His Energies are knowable because they show us who He is and what He does. His Energies thus understood are His Providence, and Grace. In this way we can know about God's love, God's Will, God's Goodness without compromising the fact that he is utterly unknowable in Essence nor denying God's simplicity. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="color: #000000">The ousia or Essence of God in Catholic Christianities, is God as God is in himself. God, as He is in Himself, cannot be understood by any save Himself. 1 Timothy 6:16, "<strong><em>Dwelling in that inaccessible light, whom no man has seen or can see</em></strong>." Its like my mind. You cannot know my private thoughts. In the same way you cannot posses God's mind and private thoughts. However you can know what I am thinking in my mind through my actions and speech. In the same way God's mind - his Essence - is revealed through his actions and activities in the world. The attributes of God tell us what He is and who He is. It is the energies of God that enable us to experience something of the Divine. St John Damascene (676 – 749) states that "<strong>all that we say positively of God manifests not his nature but the things about his nature</strong>."</span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 10px"><span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span style="color: #000000">His energies are also "Uncreated" along with the Essence. </span></span></span></p><p> </p><p>This is the Catholic teaching. Some quotes: </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">"...The finest thing that we can say of God is to be silent concerning him from the wisdom of inner riches...Lord I have sought you in all the temples of the world and lo, I find you within myself. If a man does not find the Lord within himself, he will surely not find him in the world..." </span></p><p> </p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><em>- Saint Augustine</em></span> (354–430 C.E) </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">"...You should not wish to understand <em><u>anything</u></em> about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: "If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God." If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance...All that God asks of you most pressingly is to go out of yourself - and let God be God in you..." </span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><em>- Meister Eckhart</em></span> (c. 1260 – c. 1327)</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>However there is no contradiction between the unknowability of God and the recognition of aspects of God in ourselves. God is not <strong><em>absolutely</em></strong> unknowable in terms of <em>energies/attributes</em> since even inanimate objects point to His existence and creative power, although he is <strong>completely</strong> unknowable in Essence. God is after all IN ALL THINGS. We can thus 'know' something of God's attributes through his creation, his indwelling within ourselves and in others etc. His love is evident in the immense value of life and our love for Him is itself a form of knowledge - it is in fact love which is the bridge to God where finite knowledge ultimately fails. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I also do get what our dear brother Ambarsaria was saying in this respect and I agree with him too. </p><p> </p><p>Most journeys can be understood in three parts – leaving, traveling, and arrival. We leave with a particular destination in mind. There is a point of arrival. We have probably all asked or heard the familiar travel questions: “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” “When will get there?”</p><p> </p><p>However the spiritual journey is not like this at all. Arrival is not the destination of the spiritual journey. Are we there yet? No. How much longer? Eternity. When will get there? Never. The answers on the spiritual journey are different. The spiritual journey is one of eternal progress towards God. This is sometimes called the doctrine of epektasis and attributed to St. Gregory of Nyssa. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px">"<em>And so every desire for the Beautiful which draws us on in this ascent is intensified by the soul’s very progress towards it. And this is the real meaning of seeing God: never to have this desire satisfied. But fixing our eyes on those things which help us to see, we must ever keep alive in us the desire to see more and more. And so no limit can be set to our progress towards God: first of all, because no limitation can be put on upon the Beautiful, and secondly because the increase in our desire for the Beautiful cannot be stopped by any sense of satisfaction.</em>"</span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>- St. Gregory of Nyssa in The Life of Moses (335 – <em>c.</em> 395)</strong></span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>St. Paul describes his own journey as one of stretching and straining forward [epekteinomenos] toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). Paul is describing a constant move forward in an attempt to grasp something. For Gregory this movement describes the soul’s eternal progress in grace and perfection in God. Our longing for God is fulfilled in our progress towards God but is never satisfied. The grace of an unsatisfied soul calls us forward, deeper into the heart of the divine. </p><p> </p><p>Based on the scriptures and the teaching of the fathers, Saint Gregory of Nyssa works out his doctrine of theosis as an infinite process which he calls Epektasis. In his Life of Moses he brilliantly presents his principal doctrine that human goodness is a continual progression towards an infinite God. It is precisely in this context that the spiritual idealism of Philippians 3:13-14 is realized. The virtuous life in this work is full of paradoxes; it is a mixture of standing on the rock which is Christ and forever moving forward, a mixture of running and standing still. Though we are already in Christ we are summoned to an ever increasing truth. In contrast to the Creator, ‘change’ is one of the distinguishing marks of creation. According to Nyssa this capacity for constant change in humans is a guarantee for progress in deification: </p><p> </p><p>“<strong>let no one be grieved if he sees in his nature a penchant for change…. Become greater through daily increase… For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing toward what is better and never placing any limit on perfection</strong>.” </p><p> </p><p>(On Perfection, Gregory of Nyssa) "<strong>Perfection is an ongoing progress. Even in the eternal abode it is not a static experience but an infinite advance. There the journey goes on, with the eternal Bridegroom, into greater and greater delights, joys and beauties</strong>". </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Do we Catholics make sense or do we sometimes speak gobble-de-gook? motherlylove</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Archived_member15, post: 162436, member: 17438"] My dear Scarlet mundahug I agree! We never fathom or understand God as God is is in Itself - that is as it is in its Essence. [FONT=Arial]The great mystic St John of the Cross (1542 – 1591) wrote "[B]That thou mayest know [I]everything[/I], [I]seek[/I] to know [I]nothing[/I][/B]". St Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) also advocated the [SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]via negativa because God is not an object in the universe and it is not possible to describe the Deus absconditus with words or to grasp Supreme Reality with our finite intelligence. The highest form of knowledge is not via the intellect but through love, which pierces the great cloud of unknowing between ourselves and God. Where our finite intellect fails to comprehend the Infinite God, love fills the gap and draws us to the bosom of our creator. As Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) explained, "[B]I know, that everything which I know, is not God, and that everything I conceive, is no comparison to Him[/B], [B]but rather He excels it. God is unknowable by Human Beings; all that we can really know is that we are ignorant, so our knowledge of God is what He is not. Therefore God is [I][U]nothing[/U][/I].[/B]" [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Arial][SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Yes you read that - Catholics regard God as "NOTHING" literally "NO-THING". [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] [SIZE=2][FONT=Arial][COLOR=#000000]God's essence remains eternally unknowable and impenetrable. However, it is clear that God has revealed Himself to man and is encountered by man. It is through God's energies that we encounter God. Because God does not change, else we slip into a deistic conception of the Divine, a distant God who does not reveal himself to man through revelations. God's energies are eternal. Take, for example, God's love. God has never been without love, so God's love must be eternal. And these 'energies' are knowable, while his Essence is not. [/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=2][FONT=Arial][COLOR=#000000]When I speak about God's Essence I'm essentially speaking of His divinity, His (and forgive me the male pronoun which is not indicative of gender at all) [I]'God-ness'[/I] or [I]'Is-ness'[/I]. When I speak of His energies I am speaking of His actions. To understand the first we'd have to be God Himself, because only He has the capacity to understand that and therefore He IS, as the God, wholly transcendent and otherly. But, His Energies are knowable because they show us who He is and what He does. His Energies thus understood are His Providence, and Grace. In this way we can know about God's love, God's Will, God's Goodness without compromising the fact that he is utterly unknowable in Essence nor denying God's simplicity. [/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=2][FONT=Arial][COLOR=#000000]The ousia or Essence of God in Catholic Christianities, is God as God is in himself. God, as He is in Himself, cannot be understood by any save Himself. 1 Timothy 6:16, "[B][I]Dwelling in that inaccessible light, whom no man has seen or can see[/I][/B]." Its like my mind. You cannot know my private thoughts. In the same way you cannot posses God's mind and private thoughts. However you can know what I am thinking in my mind through my actions and speech. In the same way God's mind - his Essence - is revealed through his actions and activities in the world. The attributes of God tell us what He is and who He is. It is the energies of God that enable us to experience something of the Divine. St John Damascene (676 – 749) states that "[B]all that we say positively of God manifests not his nature but the things about his nature[/B]."[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=2][FONT=Arial][COLOR=#000000]His energies are also "Uncreated" along with the Essence. [/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE] This is the Catholic teaching. Some quotes: [SIZE=3]"...The finest thing that we can say of God is to be silent concerning him from the wisdom of inner riches...Lord I have sought you in all the temples of the world and lo, I find you within myself. If a man does not find the Lord within himself, he will surely not find him in the world..." [/SIZE] [SIZE=3][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][I]- Saint Augustine[/I][/SIZE] (354–430 C.E) [SIZE=3]"...You should not wish to understand [I][U]anything[/U][/I] about God, for God is beyond all understanding. A master says: "If I had a God that I could understand, I would not regard him as God." If you understand anything about him, then he is not in it, and by understanding something of him, you fall into ignorance...All that God asks of you most pressingly is to go out of yourself - and let God be God in you..." [/SIZE] [SIZE=3][I]- Meister Eckhart[/I][/SIZE] (c. 1260 – c. 1327) However there is no contradiction between the unknowability of God and the recognition of aspects of God in ourselves. God is not [B][I]absolutely[/I][/B] unknowable in terms of [I]energies/attributes[/I] since even inanimate objects point to His existence and creative power, although he is [B]completely[/B] unknowable in Essence. God is after all IN ALL THINGS. We can thus 'know' something of God's attributes through his creation, his indwelling within ourselves and in others etc. His love is evident in the immense value of life and our love for Him is itself a form of knowledge - it is in fact love which is the bridge to God where finite knowledge ultimately fails. I also do get what our dear brother Ambarsaria was saying in this respect and I agree with him too. Most journeys can be understood in three parts – leaving, traveling, and arrival. We leave with a particular destination in mind. There is a point of arrival. We have probably all asked or heard the familiar travel questions: “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” “When will get there?” However the spiritual journey is not like this at all. Arrival is not the destination of the spiritual journey. Are we there yet? No. How much longer? Eternity. When will get there? Never. The answers on the spiritual journey are different. The spiritual journey is one of eternal progress towards God. This is sometimes called the doctrine of epektasis and attributed to St. Gregory of Nyssa. [SIZE=3]"[I]And so every desire for the Beautiful which draws us on in this ascent is intensified by the soul’s very progress towards it. And this is the real meaning of seeing God: never to have this desire satisfied. But fixing our eyes on those things which help us to see, we must ever keep alive in us the desire to see more and more. And so no limit can be set to our progress towards God: first of all, because no limitation can be put on upon the Beautiful, and secondly because the increase in our desire for the Beautiful cannot be stopped by any sense of satisfaction.[/I]"[/SIZE] [SIZE=3][B]- St. Gregory of Nyssa in The Life of Moses (335 – [I]c.[/I] 395)[/B][/SIZE] St. Paul describes his own journey as one of stretching and straining forward [epekteinomenos] toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14). Paul is describing a constant move forward in an attempt to grasp something. For Gregory this movement describes the soul’s eternal progress in grace and perfection in God. Our longing for God is fulfilled in our progress towards God but is never satisfied. The grace of an unsatisfied soul calls us forward, deeper into the heart of the divine. Based on the scriptures and the teaching of the fathers, Saint Gregory of Nyssa works out his doctrine of theosis as an infinite process which he calls Epektasis. In his Life of Moses he brilliantly presents his principal doctrine that human goodness is a continual progression towards an infinite God. It is precisely in this context that the spiritual idealism of Philippians 3:13-14 is realized. The virtuous life in this work is full of paradoxes; it is a mixture of standing on the rock which is Christ and forever moving forward, a mixture of running and standing still. Though we are already in Christ we are summoned to an ever increasing truth. In contrast to the Creator, ‘change’ is one of the distinguishing marks of creation. According to Nyssa this capacity for constant change in humans is a guarantee for progress in deification: “[B]let no one be grieved if he sees in his nature a penchant for change…. Become greater through daily increase… For this is truly perfection: never to stop growing toward what is better and never placing any limit on perfection[/B].” (On Perfection, Gregory of Nyssa) "[B]Perfection is an ongoing progress. Even in the eternal abode it is not a static experience but an infinite advance. There the journey goes on, with the eternal Bridegroom, into greater and greater delights, joys and beauties[/B]". Do we Catholics make sense or do we sometimes speak gobble-de-gook? motherlylove [/QUOTE]
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