To: James Calladine who wrote (13720 ) 10/13/2002 2:13:24 PM From: briskit Read Replies (1) | Respond to On one level the difference is semantic. Adi Da says we need to "realize" we are already one with God, or perhaps I might interpret him to say we are in fact one with God, but we, from our perspective, are not "being one with God" if that can be understood. In that sense Judeo-Christianity says we obviously are all children of God, we just don't acknowledge it, or realize it. In other words we do not assent that we are one with God. We assert instead that we are our own persons, or there is no God, or we can't know if there is, which is back to the ego. In that sense, or for practical purposes, I see the difference as semantic. The substantive difference is a clear disagreement. Paul says in the NT that "in God we live, and move, and have our being", but he does not mean by it what Adi Da means, nor would most Jews or Christians that I know. That difference is a fundamental fork in the road in the approaches to God and faith and being. I am not sure what difference results, or the practical implications of the two conceptual differences. Jews and Christians say that the failure to acknowledge that we are children of God, or that we are in God, or are one with God, is what constitutes the separation. We would respect the person's position that they do not acknowledge a relation or connection to God, and thus by their choice maintain a real separation. We would not say to them, "No, you are not separate from God. You are part of God and cannot do anything about that." Their assertion does not mean they do not "live and move and have their being in God." It means they disallow, disavow, cancel, consider null and void, (however you describe it) any relationship or obligation or experience resulting from any potential relationship between themselves and this God. Those are two differing understandings that I do not know how to resolve.
