There isnt that much freedom it seems...and INFINITY

[Quantum]

: infinity can never be finity. because, if it could, it means it wasnt infinity from the start.

: I agree with this. Infinity can't be finity. The question then is how does finity come about. My answer, which I've really just cribbed, to the best of my ability, from Ra, is that infinity masks or distorts itself into the illusion we experience. That means that it's still infinity; it just appears, from our limited viewpoint, not to be.

: Sure. From infinity's viewpoint, it's still infinity. From ours, it's not. But ours is included in infinity's viewpoint, as is everything...

I have much enjoyed this most interesting dialog which (for the moment) captivated me more than any other conversation presently on the forum. I am most intrigued βαθμιαίος with not only your responses and noble attempts at sorting through the interpretations, but also for what I feel are the more correct. If I may in closing, in the hopes of assisting, rather than interrupting, or, heaven forbid derailing, what I consider to be your very clear and well thought out stream of considerations, wonder if I may add to it.

It is a given, as much as is painfully self-evident, that as unity100 points out, infinity can never be finity, in the same simple sense that hot can never be cold, or that up can never be down, or that in can never be out, etc. etc etc.. Ergo, we all can certainly agree that finity is not Infinity. We further agree Infinity contains all. Therefore as such, the all (Infinity) must also contain finity within it. The aphorism and adage of the "chicken and the egg" therefore does not as a result apply in terms of which came first. Infinity did...as much as it does, as much as "It Presently Is," as much as "It Always Was," as "It Always Shall Be."

To the statement(s) that I believe began this dialog: Do we agree/disagree with unity100 that the Creator, the Original Logos, God, or whatever name we wish to utilize, is not Infinity? As a consequence, do we agree/disagree that "We" are not Infinity as a result...given we are the Creator nonetheless in multi-faceted form? And herein I believe is where the gap and conversation divides itself to the dialog at hand.This harkens back to my original statement to unity100 in Post #43 and #49 (above) wherein I suggest that deduction/induction is not possible as relates to such questions, given that arriving at a hypothesis from the "particular" to the general vs from the general to the" particular" as definitions of deduction and induction, in and of itself infers that the particular may be defined by either path. Clearly this is far from the case. The particular shall forever remain masked and unknown. unity100 attempts nevertheless to deduce by cold logic alone that which is neither deducible nor inducible by first suggesting that the Creator and Infinity are not one and the same, and that as such the Creator is contained within Infinity rather than that the Creator is Infinity itself, this seemingly as a down stepped version of Infinity. The Creator is thus relegated to a seeming distortion of Infinity, and therefore is not Infinity Itself. He further then goes on to suggest that we are not Infinity. Yet Ra teaches us to see the Creator in the mirror as ourselves and as our brothers, and notwithstanding that Ra begins each and every single session with "I greet you in the love and in the light of the One Infinite Creator", versus "I greet you in the love and in the light of Infinity." I seriously doubt this as a trifling matter as I am sure that were there anything larger than the One Infinite Creator that Ra would have greeted us in that name vs its subordinate. Thus we have by unity100's descriptor a cold inert ineffable nothingness, or even perhaps a somethingness(?) that is nonetheless inert which he defines as Infinity which was and remains as not the same thing as the Creator becoming aware. He (unity100) states that as a result of Infinity at some point being unaware (which we all as followers of the LOO must agree is true) that it therefore also follows that a separation, distortion or division from Infinty must have occurred, rather than in fact assuming the more simple explanation that Infinity simply became aware as Ra simply states. Interestingly as a result this suggests that awareness is a distortion, a down-stepped devolution rather than an outgrowth and up-stepped evolution? Extrapolating this as a causative example, all children who become adults and ultimately attain awareness become ever more distorted and devolved as a result through it. As unity100 states, and I paraphrase: 'Infinity to be infinity always contained awareness (as much as its opposite unawareness) less it was never Infinity to begin with. See below the noble example of βαθμιαίος arguing for Ra whereas unity100 argues against.

I'm not sure that your distinction between infinity and intelligent infinity is all that convincing. Ra doesn't describe intelligent infinity's intelligence as a distortion. The first distortion, according to them, is free will. Infinity became aware. There is no longer, as I understand it, any part of infinity that is not aware or intelligent.

: if infinity wasnt aware before, it means that it wasnt infinity. for something to be infinite, it has to be everything that there can be, and also be nothing. ie, infinity.

....for infinity to be able to be aware AFTER a certain state, and also to still have been infinity BEFORE that state, infinity would need to have split into 2 principles or states, aware and unaware. thus, before 'becoming aware', it would have been still infinity (because it was both aware and unaware), and so its infinity status would be actual.

Completely contrary to Ra.
And alas to these contradictions see below:

i have no problems in disagreeing with Ra.

Here then are unity100's statements in summation:
1. Infinity was always aware according to unity100, contrary to Ra.
2. The Creator is not Infinity "that became aware"(as explicitly stated by unity100 above in his response) but is rather the creator (with a little "c") contained within Infinity, this contrary to Ra.
3. We as the Creator are not Infinity, this contrary to Ra, this by the simple statement wherein Ra states many times over that "we are the Creator."
4. Awareness, according to unity100, is the first distortion given that awareness was the first movement of Infinity contrary to Ra.

This again is not at all what Ra says. Ra states that the first distortion is free will, not that the first distortion was Intelligent Infinity which became aware which became the creator as a consequence.

If the Creator is Infinity, as Ra states, and we are the Creator, as Ra states, then it follows that we are also Infinity, as Ra also clearly states.

I return to my previous posts # 43 and #49 wherein I suggest that if a premise is from its inception false, then so too are all of its conclusions as a result thereafter. This is why I asked unity100 in the same post if we are philosophically arguing/debating or speaking to "unity100 philosophy" or if we are philosophically arguing/debating, or speaking "LOO philosophy." I have yet to receive a specific response to my question posed, less to my posts even generally?

"any portion of any density or illusory pattern ... contains the One Creator which is infinity."

If it's a portion, then it has differentiation...it has distortion....Therefore, the way I interpret it, a portion cannot be the whole.

A potion cannot be the whole? This is taken out of context. Ra did not state as deduced that a portion can not be the whole. Instead what is stated explicitly is that "a portion," in this context, is in fact elegantly: "that which contains the One Creator." The One Infinite Creator is Infinity. Infinity is the whole. Each portion of the Creator is the Creator. Each portion, if it must be seen as portions versus wholes in the context of mathematics, is in fact the whole in the context within the realm of Infinity/The Creator/Magic. How sublimely beautiful. There it is, yet not seen. Through the same faculty of deductive reason alone it is dissected and made instead into a statement of separation rather than one of Unity, i.e. "any portion of (any density or) illusory pattern contains the One Creator which is infinity. Intuitively speaking, might one assume, if read in this context, that Ra meant his statement as one that divides, or rather as one that unifies? In fact, the answer clearly tickles the obvious that the Ra quote is not an attempt to divide portions vs wholes, but is rather instead simply stating that any portion in fact very simply is Infinity, which is what is stated.

We become lost in a morass of words that in the end loose their continuity and meaning by the faculty of deductive reason and logic alone. It is my observation as suggested in my previous posts that rather through adductive/abductive reasoning processes vs deductive/inductive reasoning processes, that we are better served by reserving esoterica as something lending itself more to poetry than to the mathematics of deduction alone where particulars may be drawn out. Poetic analysis does not lend itself to segmentation and compartmentalization to even seemingly attempt to divide infinity.
I refer you to the following quotes if I may:

"My contention is that the illusion itself IS the limit! It is no less real because it is illusion."

Illusion now has become real in the morass of words and deduction. Clearly illusion feels real. But just as certain illusion as illusion is not real. If so, we are now by this suggesting the antithesis of everything we came here to unlearn if we agree that the illusion is real. If so let us then abandon all philosophy that teaches us otherwise that the illusion of life is just that....an illusion....as in not really real.

Illusion - something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality; the state or condition of being deceived; misapprehension.

Humorously, through the morass of words and logic alone, we may actually within the illusion deceive ourselves into believing that the illusion is real.
Back on track the quote then continues

My interpretation of Ra's use of the word illusion is that it indicates a skewing, a distorting, of that which is real. That distortion might be an amplification of certain aspects, to the exclusion of other aspects, such as we might find in a fun-house mirror. A fun-house mirror doesn't show us what isn't really there; it just distorts what is really there.

But then goes back off track by stating:

When we cast aside the illusion (in meditation or when we leave this reality), we see our unity/infinity clearly, whereas we can't see it from within the illusion.

This simply re-posits the previous statement by again re-suggesting that we can not see it from within the illusion because it must necessarily be real once more? Herein is the power of the mask and the gift of illusion. It feels real in spite of all our mental efforts to the contrary which rally against the fact that it is not real. God knows it feels real to me as well. God also knows as much that as I logic this out spiritually on paper that when I place my pen down and step out into the "real" world again that the illusion becomes "seemingly real" once more. Even in the mental exercise above, one may shake it off momentarily in a thought exercise only to return to it all lover again. An illusion is just that: an illusion, i.e. not real.

It seems to me that the seeming disagreement is based on a confusion of these 2 terms. The arguments put forth seem to be in favor of us being infinite beings, and containing infinity, which I agree with. However, in my opinion, that doesn't mean we are infinity. The reason I see it this way is that, in my understanding, the very definition of infinity is without distortion.

An excellent point to return to "unity100 philosophy" versus "The LOO." Certainly as unity100 would instruct, Infinity contains everything, which by definition must also contain distortion. Therefore unity100 must argue by reason of his definition of Infinity that Infinity would not be Infinity if it did not also contain the all inclusive definition of distortion as well. This is contrary to the Ra Material and teachings.
However to your point that infinity, the One Infinite Creator, is without distortion. It is according to Ra. My response as a reconciliation to these seeming contradictions you posit is is that We may don on our masks of illusion, but we are not our masks. Behind our masks are us.
You make a beautiful poetic reference to this below:

I think of illusion as an exquisitely-wrought mask for infinity. It's the carefully-crafted gift that our logos is offering to the Creator so that it may know itself.

If at a party I don on a mask and am later incapable of withdrawing it, this for any number of reasons (insanity, drugs, paranoia, or more elegantly and simply stated = self chosen veils of unawareness) and am now unable to see myself but for it, as much as you are incapable of seeing me without it, this as a result of your own issues of same, this does not mean that I am my mask anymore than I am me separate from myself as a result of the mask you (or I ) see me through, nor that despite what we otherwise agree on that I have become my mask or am my mask, that I therefore am incapable of being who I really am behind it. I may be very lost in it, as much as you are with me in it, as much as you are in yourself through it by virtue of your own mask as well. But, you are you behind your mask in truth separate from your illusion within your mask of illusion.

We've really gotten ourselves into a fine mess haven't we when we're both viewing each other and everything else in the universe through our rather cumbersome masks ( illusion ) which aren't really us, but which nonetheless seem to have become us, given we've become lost in them. Just for fun, lets pretend we don't have them on, but will don them on later for the party, and then at the party become submerged in them like a drug. Now, while at the party under the influence of the drug we have a wonderful conversation about not being Infinity as a result of fully being lost in the pretense that we're finite while fully believing that we're also incapable of removing our masks in this venture for which we signed up for, i.e. "Piercing Veils and Removing of Masks 101" to begin with, either in the effort of seeing me or yourself successfully through them and/or without them. In fact with them we are incapable of seeing anything as clearly, given these masks are truly filters for illusion vs filters for filtering out illusion. This is reminiscent of the Einstein quote, to paraphrase, "one is incapable of solving a problem from the level it is created at."

1. I am not my mask. I am not illusion.
2. Infinity is not illusion. Infinity is not the mask.
3. Infinity contains and offers illusion as the mask. The mask is finity.
4. Finity is illusion.
5. Ergo, if I am not the mask and not the illusion, I am Infinity. I am the Creator. I am Infinity masked. I am the Creator masked. I am not finite.
6. I am infinite infinity choosing to be finite as a gift to the Creator myself through the mask of illusion.

Having created the poetic metaphor of the mask as illusion, let us not now strain to divide illusion, as if possible, this by suggesting that the opposite of that which is real (Infinity) is the illusion of finity. We must agree that finity is indeed illusion. The mask of finity is illusion.Therefore finity is in fact illusion and not real. Therefore finity as an illusion does not truly exist, and particularly in the manner we seemingly see it.....if at all. Thus we are as Ra states, Infinite. We are the Creator.

Attempting to have a dialog as if though there were two separate realities in which one I am the mask and in which the other we all know I am not, limits the truer understanding of what wearing masks are about, less we become lost in said mask wearing.

Much of this entire dialog which unity 100 created, although interesting enough, is completely contrary to the Ra Material. Period. And that's OK (in a sense). But for those not as able to pull from it (The Ra Material), or for those not as familiar with it (The Ra Material) this might otherwise be a rather convincing argument if left unchecked. But we are here to study the Ra Material, not distortions or misrepresentations of it, are we not? Therefore I salute you βαθμιαίος and your noble attempts to do so and remain on track as a student and vanguard standing sentry to it.

One last example to unity100 philosophy, this on a similar thread and conversation just days ago on "Biased Views of STS"

infinity cannot create. even the concept 'create' is contained within infinity, in its infinite number of forms

As stated before, each and every single session begins with Ra stating explicitly "I greet you in the love and in the light of "THE ONE INFINITE CREATOR." Is Ra toying with us by stating that the Creator as Infinity unaware became aware and that it is now the ONE INFINITE Creator? Surely we think not. Thus much of the unity100 logic on this thread as well as Biased Views of STS, although enticing are simply contrary to the LOO.
What does the term Creator imply but to create? What does the term Infinite Creator imply but a Creator that is Infinite...and as such Infinity. The language is not confounding. It is painstakingly clear.

It is honestly pointed out by unity100 that he disagrees with Ra. Let us not miss this. What are we speaking to then? βαθμιαίος has placed himself into the position of arguing for Ra whilst unity100 is arguing against. And from here as a result there have been pages of dialog on two threads simultaneously centering around a self admittedly contrary position to the Ra Material. Perhaps this is OK. I am reticent to say. It certainly provides fodder to clarify the material. Should a member wish to argue against the Ra material, perhaps much may be learned through it by this method? This discussion has in some ways been vaguely reminiscent of one I engaged in on "Biased Views of STS" with Chaotikmind and AwakenedOne in 2009 wherein I made the same observation as to how easily the Ra Material may be distorted if not put on the table as honestly and immediately as did unity100. I admire that unity100 was as quick to admit he disagrees with portions of the Ra Material and that he furthermore has no problems to do so. This is honest and forthright. Any member should be as fair and honest such that the argument is out on the table as either a question or a challenge to the material rather than as seemingly stated facts within the material less it derails the material otherwise (however slightly), given that newbies and those that have yet to read for themselves may cite dialog and opinion within the forum as valid source material.

It has been a most interesting thread, even if much of it has self admittedly been entirely contrary to the teachings of the LOO from its inception, which again is no small or trifling or inconsequential matter, but which is made so quickly if checked and challenged.

~Q~