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From: radams@cerritos.edu
Subject: Spirit and Nature
Date: Sat, 8 Jun 91 20:33:22 GMT
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Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA
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I just saw a good program on PBS called Spirit and Nature hosted by Bill
Moyers which explores the relationship between nature and spirituality
or religion.  Two of the speakers in the conference on this subject helped
me to understand why many people in the west have drifted away from 
Judaism/Christianity.  The Judeo-Christian tradition emphasises a God that
is Father or King thus implying a certain distance from His creation.  One
of the christian theologians on the program (a woman) said that we have lost
something in the west by not allowing the concept of God as Mother, Lover,
and Friend.  We find these concepts in Hinduism and Shintoism and also in
in some american indian spiritual philosophy.  If we did have the concept
of God as Mother or Friend or Lover, especially Mother, we may feel closer
to God and also to nature which we may feel to be an expresion or manifestation
of Mother God and perhaps stop destroying our world and its resources.
Now, I am philosophically non-dualist as far as my view of ultimate Truth
or Reality is concerned but I see the necessity (as I mentioned in a previous
post concerning Ramana Maharshi) of a dualistic approach to the non-dualistic
Truth or Reality by developing a closer relationship to God which is non other
than our own Self - the one reality without any second and eventually merging
into this Reality or God and loose any sense of separation from Her or It -
like a wave merging into the Sea.


	Roger Adams

	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
	11110 Alondra Blvd                             A Hindu Proverb
        Norwalk, California 90650
	USA
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