3 Theories Of Everything by Ellis Potter

What do any of the things you mention have to do with anything but how you feel?

And there you go again. You made the same argument about Saul being transformed into Paul. Paul was totally different than Saul. You minimize the event by claiming that he simply switched sides and was essentially the same person.

You can really only test "spirit" through long term observation of behavior.

To understand Buddhism, it is important to understand the concept of Monism – one of the great ‘theories of everything’. Monism is not the same as monotheism. Monotheism is the belief in one God, but Monism is the belief in one One, a total unity that is the ground of everything. That is very different. If you believe in one God, then you have God and not God, but if you believe in one One, then you have only unity, or All is One.

Monism is an ancient worldview. It probably came about when people looked around at the world and felt a strong sense of unity. There is one earth, one sky, one sun, one moon, one human race, one cycle of day and night, one cycle of four seasons. At the same time, people saw diversity. They saw differences. The unities they witnessed were stable and dependable, but the diversities they witnessed were unstable and undependable. Monism argues that the original perfection is a perfect, changeless, eternal unity. We suffer because we have forgotten this original unity and live in an illusion of diversity. This illusion may seem very real to us, but it’s an illusion nevertheless. According to Monism, the solution to suffering is to remember and realize the perfect unity again.

All is One! is the bumper sticker of the New Age movement. It’s the great sound bite, the great evangelistic cry. All is One. If all is One, then you are God. You are the sun and the moon and the Milky Way and the whole universe. If all is One, then when you drink from a cup of water, you are God putting God into God. ‘All is One’ is so attractive because if everything is one, no one is going to disagree with anyone, no one will fight, no one will misunderstand, and no one will be lonely. All problems are solved if everything is one. You might sort of like this idea. If all is one, however, then you are me, and that might not be so attractive. If everything is one, relationships are evil because you only have relationships when you have the illusion of diversity. If everything is one, hatred is evil because hatred is a relationship, and love is also evil because love is a relationship.

Some people are inclined to protest against this line of reasoning because they don’t want to give up the idea of love or relationship. But Monism is an absolute worldview that encompasses everything, and so you can’t pick and choose to keep some parts of reality diverse or separate. Everything is one. Nothing is left out, nothing is divided, and everything is absolutely unified.

The idea that all is One has its roots in ancient versions of Monism. It is the foundation of Hinduism and Buddhism, the great monistic religions.

When a Christian tells Buddhists or Hindus that they need to be born again they will reply, ‘Oh, I know—and again and again!’ Being born again doesn’t sound like good news to a Buddhist or Hindu.

Christians have a different view – another theory of everything: Trinitarianism. They regard the original perfection, which is called God, as both perfectly unified and perfectly diversified.

We see a clear description of this reality in the Bible. God is perfectly unified as one God, and yet God is perfectly diversified in the three persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is unity and diversity in absolute reality. There is not one God who chooses to reveal Himself in three ways in order to create the appearance of diversity, and there are not three persons who choose to unite and cooperate in order to create the appearance of being unified.

Here is a proverb I made up to capture the essence of this reality: God alone is God, and God is not alone. You cannot make this statement about any other God or original perfection. You can say Buddha alone is Buddha, but that is all. The rest is silence. You can say Krishna alone is Krishna and Allah alone is Allah, but the rest again is silence. If the God of the Bible wants to talk to somebody, He talks among Himself, because He is three persons. A God who wasn’t diversified could not talk among Himself. He would have to create something else to talk with. He would require a creation in order to be personal, whereas the God of the Bible is intrinsically personal, independent of His creation. His creation does not complete Him but rather expresses Him.

If the original perfection is both unified and diversified, it means that when we experience unity in reality it shouldn’t be a problem, and when we experience diversity in reality it shouldn’t be a problem. In other words, unlike Monism, Trinitarianism does not regard diversity as the cause of suffering, and does not see the solution to suffering as involving a detachment from diversity. The Christian sees variation and contrast as a part of the original perfection, and therefore, as a normal part of reality itself.

The Bible’s depiction of absolute reality is a totally other-centered God. This other-centeredness is the source of God’s energy, for as each of the persons of God empties Himself once, He is filled twice by the others. This energy increases exponentially. It became so great that God could say Let there be light! and a universe was born. The Bible gives a name to this energy when it says God is love. It is an other-centered emptying and filling, a perpetual building up of energy. It is the energy of life. It is the foundation of all reality.
Conclusion

For Buddhists, the original perfection is a total perfect unity and we suffer because we have the illusion of diversity. Salvation is waking up and realizing that unity again. For Christians, the original perfection is a unity of three persons who are other-centered in a relational reality of love. We suffer because we have turned things around and have become self-centered dead people. Salvation is God coming into creation and giving Himself in order that people can receive the power to be re-created as other-centered living people.

What do you think? Where are you?