As you work your way through this forum you will discover lectures, discussions, books, etc from anywhere and everywhere. Many are from religious sources, many are not.
The ideas and beliefs expressed therein are just that - an expression of someone's opinion on the age old questions - where do we come from, why are we here and where are we going to?
It has been assumed by minds much greater than mine that the Truth is too grand for one section of society to have all the answers, and that some of the answers to Life's riddles are to be found - a little here and a little there.
Hopefully you will each feel free to post that which you hold dear, sacred, worthwhile etc - no matter the source. We all have something to teach each other.
Adelaide Lodge has no problems discussing the various religions and their belief systems. We are fortunate to have members of several different faiths and it is wonderful to be able to compare their symbols and stories and interpretation thereof with what we find in a lodgeroom. Our festive boards are great for discovering new things.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
There is a lovely email doing the rounds at the moment where the Dalai Lama states that any religion which leads a person to become more caring, loving, useful to humanity etc is the right religion for that person.
I guess the same could be said for service clubs, volunteer groups etc.
Freemasonry - a personal evolutionary tool? And as we evolve we have a positive affect of those who move in our circle?
Since becoming a Freemason I have become more sensitive, and understanding, of the needs of others - but I have also learned so much more about things terrestrial, celestial, psychological, metaphysical, scientific, and the list goes on...
I am also coming to understand that 'the story' we choose to study might not really matter IE if one looks for the symbolic significance of one's supermarket shopping list one could might make some interesting discoveries about the nature of the world we live in.
In a physical way, we might say that death can enter because man deposits salts, i.e. solid mineral substances, dead substances, not only in the body, but also in his brain. The brain has the constant tendency to deposit salt — I might say, toward an incomplete ossification. So that the brain contains a constant tendency toward death. This inoculation of death had to enter in mankind. And I might say, that the result of this necessary development — that death began to have a real influence in man's life — was the outward acquaintance with death. If men had remained the same as in the past, where they did not really know death, they would never have been able to develop an intellect, for the intellect is only possible in a world where death holds sway.
If men had remained the same as in the past, where they did not really know death, they would never have been able to develop an intellect, for the intellect is only possible in a world where death holds sway.
True or False?
Is this what the Hiramic Legend is teaching us? Without the SW would the JW remain forever in the same place?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
There is a lovely email doing the rounds at the moment where the Dalai Lama states that any religion which leads a person to become more caring, loving, useful to humanity etc is the right religion for that person.
I guess the same could be said for service clubs, volunteer groups etc.
That is an interesting proposition: that serving humans is the same as serving humanity.
I am thinking that true service would generate positive reactions such as delight, warm fuzzy to heartfelt gratitude, etc. True service might also include 'non co-operation', the benefit of which might only be gratefully acknowledged some years later on.
I am led to believe that the final Initiation involves putting one's personality and private needs aside for the benefit of others - exemplified by the biblical Crucifixion.
The second great commandment is, Love they neighbour as thyself.
Which reminds me of the saying 'What you do unto others you do unto yourself' - which I think is closely tied to that 'What you keep you lose, what you give away you retain' or something along those lines.
Even though you find these things in the Bible, I think it is a mistake to treat them as religious sayings... maybe in a quantum mechanics, string theory of everything sort of world all of the above is true. Religion meets science meets Reality ??
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
Perhaps true service requires some sense of what the planet ought to be and what role humanity might have in that.
Given that sense then the human may contribute to those activities that progress the planet and the race rather than comfort the individual humans.
On the weekend I became aware of a couple in South Africa who have a large house and an expensive lifestyle based upon sale of business advertising and tennis lessons. Their incomes are dropping sharply now and they are behind on their mortgage but they are reluctant to downsize their house or their lifestyle. It seems that their pain needs to become greater before they are prepared to adapt to the new reality.
Thus the soothing of human pain is not always an act of true service
