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[Jack7]

I'm gonna take up Meditation next. Contemplation afterwards and then move onto other matters. I hope this thread can be used for ideas in which to radically re-address, if not outright reform the Cleric, and how he operates and what his relationship is to the Divine, and so forth and so on. Same for lay-characters.

In order to do that though I thought I might provide a little background to see how I look at these things and how I define them, and so what they mean when I'm talking about them.

Now I personally was taught meditation by a Yogin. It was my first experience with meditation and I was taught to concentrate wholly and exclusively upon a single thought, mantram, or target. Later the intention was to go from a single object of meditation to no object, or no thought at all, then on to God. I learned Raja Yoga which taught you to get "your thoughts out of the way," and to suppress your ego as an interference between you and God. (Your thoughts being sort of like mental and psychological static interfering with clear perception and reception.) From there I went on to Christian meditation (which works basically the same way but has an interesting twist upon the Divine-human interface) and I still practice meditation but not nearly so much as prayer, I reckon because it takes so much more energy and focus (in the sense of time) and I'm very busy with various things. (You can pray anytime and in any state or condition, but concentrated meditation takes some "prep-work" in order to clear the mind and relax the body. You can pray "on the run" but mediation takes a certain centering and fixing of yourself in a still relationship to your environment. So in that sense I think of mediation as a sort of "Ritual" and that's how I'd handle it in-game.) I find meditation extremely useful and wish I had more time to devote to it, but right now, I don't. I guess I've always thought of meditation as an escape from the world, as prayer as an attempt to change the world, and as contemplation as a method of examining the world. As a personal observation I don't think my personal spiritual life would be nearly as rich if I only practiced prayer, or only meditation, or only contemplation. They each serve different functions for me.

Contemplation on the other hand, as compared to meditation, is to me far more elide-ranging. I see contemplation as "seeing connections" between things in a sort of "telescopic scope or field of vision." For lack of a better term. Contemplation takes you from "here-to-there" and I use it as one of my main "thinking techniques" both for religious and spiritual purposes, and for scientific observations, when I am inventing, and problem solving, etc. It is different from "just thinking" for there is an underlying and intentional purpose, but it is a sort of specialized method of "contemplating things."

Now for some personal definitions to differentiate things so that a little later on I can address these things in-game and in relation to the Cleric, to God in the game, and to other character "classes" or professions.

These definitions will be loose and illustrative rather than hard and fixed.

Prayer - prayer is like "talking to God." To me technologically speaking it is similar to a telephone. Of course every conversation has different effects, including effects you often don't realize until after the conversation is over and think back upon what really occurred. For instance it is sometimes like having a conversation with a person and something gets said which you think seems to mean one thing or imply one thing and then only later on do you realize it might have meant something entirely different, or at least much more than you had originally assumed. Prayer is sometimes like a set of parables, or a riddle in disguise, but then again meditation can work that way too.

Meditation - is fixed and highly focused. It is like, in certain cases anyways, "listening to God," versus trying to culminate something on your own part. Technologically speaking and as far as how it works I think of it as being like a microscope. A device or technique that allows you to examine in minute detail the underlying structures, operations, or nature of a thing. But it is a "still technique." For lack of a better expression it slows down or stops time. And sort of divorces you from the world or puts you in another world.

Contemplation - is like thinking about the ramifications of what you said in prayer and what God might be implying in reply through meditation. Technologically speaking to me it is like a telescope or a powerful set of binoculars. (Sometimes night-vision, X-ray, or infra-red/ultraviolet binoculars. You are "scanning the horizon" and the world looking at distant things and attempting to bring them "up close" to better perceive them. You aren't examining things in a fixed way, or passing information, or even receiving information, but you are "contemplating" in a larger or wider sense.


With those definitions in place, and my definitions don't have to be exactly like yours (I'm not fixing the terms), they are merely working definitions for purposes of what I'm gonna say next, I'm gonna move on to how I think matters like Meditation and Contemplation can be addressed in game by both Clerics and laity or lay-characters (non-clerics or paladins or so forth in relation to in-game spiritual or divine matters).

But I also didn't wanna start talking about these matters in later posts and then have people say to me, "exactly what do you mean by saying that about prayer, or meditation, or contemplation?" or, "that's not what I think prayer or meditation means at all." So rather than having to re-explain what I mean each time it is possibly discussed, my definitions are already laid out. You can suggest your own of course.

And you might disagree entirely with me on definitional aspects of the terms, but, at least you'll have some idea of what I mean in order to compare it against what you mean.

I've already, in the above post, talked about prayer and how I think it works both in real life and how I have or am gonna change how it functions in-game. Now I'll probably move next to Meditation and related matters.

One more definition while I'm thinking about it. Psychological. When I say psychological most of the time I won't be referring to modern descriptions of either the mind or behavior. Rather I'll use it like the Greeks did, to imply soul. So when I say something like, "I think meditation in-game would have this psychological effect," I don't mean a behavioral effect, or a mental effect, though it might possibly include those things. I mean psyche, as in soul. If I mean an effect upon the mind or behavior, such as better concentration, or being relaxed and untroubled, then I'll probably say mental effect or behavioral effect.

Anyways, all of that definitional prelude is out of the way now, and so next I'll take up the subject matter again.

And when I do I'm going to try to use how I see these various spiritual practices, and others, to radically reorganize the Cleric (and other classes).

I think you need to come to Circvs Maximvs (Circvs Maximvs - Powered by vBulletin) so that we can properly discuss your ideas.

By the way, I'm not ignoring your suggestion Kun, but I'm not familiar with the Circus Maximus and as far as I'm concerned, here is fine enough if people remain interested and can discuss these matters without getting all unnecessarily riled up, and argumentative in a hostile manner (and I suspect they can). That is to say I think they probably can properly discuss these things right here. I have "faith" in them. If they do though go at each other hammer and tongs then I'll probably suggest the thread get shut down as it won't really be going anywhere productive. But if these ideas can be discussed openly and in a relaxed manner then I reckon we won't really have any real problems. But I'll keep what you said in mind. Just in case.