It would appear that Muslim propaganda has you reeling in it's grip. Ever thought of becoming an imam?
An approach to spirituality without God
- Thread starter yasmin
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It would appear that Muslim propaganda has you reeling in it's grip. Ever thought of becoming an imam?
Who is your God?
Well, I feel I have to go beyond the physical, because my perception of reality was too negative and life felt like a senseless trap where suffering was the rule and happiness the exception. Like most people, I tried religion first, I was baptized as catholic so i started there first.
After years of doing everything I could to be a good person according to Jesus' teachings praying and begging and hoping and giving God the chance to make me suffer less, my life continued been worse every day. So I gave up, then I read other religions, never too much in depth.
I gathered pieces of information to find a common pattern and analyzed all of the alternatives to see if it would make sense. The reading that impressed me the most was when I read Shakty Gwain and I got the concept that the universe Always protect you and give you what you need, and would try to give you the teachings you need to be happy. I started challenging this concept by looking at what was going on in my life and asking my self: So... what is "good" for me here? every time something dissapointing happened to me.
The first time I did it, it was after I had a car accident. I went through watever I had to go though with the accident and, to my surprise after analyzing the facts I found that really at that time, with my circumstances, having a car accident was the best thing that could happen to me!!! ( I could describe what happened if you are interested) That started my search. I go through life doing what I feel I need to do, but when something challenging appears, I try to see the teaching point. And make generalizations and draw logical conclusions.
I believe we should have in our minds the capacity to figure out all of these questions that I describe in my initial post. I believe that we should not be too concerned about things our minds can not understand, if we were ment to know them then we would have been given the capacity to figure it out. Our senses are limited, therefore we are allowed to perceive only part of the reality, meanwile we generally only use 25% of our brain's capacity, therefore I believe we are supposed to develop our brains more.
I am a doctor, does that count as a healer? Most of the time I use my rational brain to try to figure out what my patients have.
I have had paranormal experiences as I described in some of the posts. But I am not in control of them, and I cannot draw too many conclusions. What I am now exploring is the "ghost" theme I watch ghost hunters regularly, to see if I can figure out something about that.
Jasmin,
I’m glad you have a medical practice going for you. That should keep your feet on the ground and in reality. It could be easy to let one’s mind wander to the point of living in a fantasy. I doubt you will ever find the kind of answers you’re seeking about why things happen. Things happen because they are a part of living. You know, being alive. We have to be able to define life somehow. To define life there is a need for some associations and references to give it a handle. When getting into the spiritual there just isn’t any handles. That is why we find so many deferent concepts to spirituality.
Some people get into meditation and incantations and spells and I was questioning if you were involved in those things. I understand by your post that is not the case. Questioning is good and doesn’t harm anything.
You giving up on religion, I understand that one because I did the same. One day I threw my bible in the garbage and never look back. Glad I did it.
I’m glad you have a medical practice going for you. That should keep your feet on the ground and in reality. It could be easy to let one’s mind wander to the point of living in a fantasy. I doubt you will ever find the kind of answers you’re seeking about why things happen. Things happen because they are a part of living. You know, being alive. We have to be able to define life somehow. To define life there is a need for some associations and references to give it a handle. When getting into the spiritual there just isn’t any handles. That is why we find so many deferent concepts to spirituality.
Some people get into meditation and incantations and spells and I was questioning if you were involved in those things. I understand by your post that is not the case. Questioning is good and doesn’t harm anything.
You giving up on religion, I understand that one because I did the same. One day I threw my bible in the garbage and never look back. Glad I did it.
I migth get into incarnations and spells or things like that in the future if I feel like I need to know more about that. For now I do not need that. I can somehow live and been balanced with the answers I have already figured out. I do not have many fears at this point. Not many resentments or angers.
I felt I needed to share these thoughts with others, just in case is of some help. I am sure there must be someone else out there who is asking the same basic questions and getting answers he/she can share with me.
And if I worship something in life is "Wisdom" if I have a god this would be it...
A friend of mine once wrote a little poem...If we only live to dieYou asked many questions and obviously different people have different answers to them . I do not see any spirituality outside a religious spectrum . Of course religions failed to convince the majority and thanks to science and technology all religions are going to be buried for good . Life is complex . I hope that with science many illnesses will be cured and aging will be fought . There are causes that make us suffer such as poverty, illnesses, wars, loneliness....etc. So if we find answers to what makes us suffer we will not suffer any more . I believe that it is possible that with advanced science people will be able to live happier and longer lives . ...I forget...we have to take care of bad people too and find them solutions . Pantheism is not a religion but a spirituality and I do not subscribe to it and I see it as another kind of simple philosophy based on speculation ..
isn't life itself
a lie?
I think you would have anwered the question of her. Thank you...Bighollow
I welcome you in the name of Mike and myself, I am glad this thread is of some help.
Not all questions have a satisfactory "why?"
Death by misfortune exists in part because we are both complex and fragile.
Death by age exists because that was advantageous at a very early point in our existence. Bacteria and our closer cousins the amoeba don't die. We do because that is part of what let us become as we are.
We lose loved ones because they die, or must go else where or the relationship deteriorates, again it is a part of the complexity which lets us love to begin with
Not necessarily. Sometimes things are hard, sometimes not. Some people make their lives harder, others make their lives easier. But generally life for most people seems to not be unbearable.
Because our parents had sex.
Because your parents had sex.
There is no inherent "supposed to." What do you wish to be doing?
What do you wish to make it about?
I thought you had a medical education?
3.5 billion years and an entire planet of resources made use what we are. "Spontaneous generation" is just a bugaboo of religious people.
You are anthropomorphizing. "Nature" is neither an entity nor intelligent. There is zero requirement for anything to make sense to you. Some things make sense, others don't, some may make sense later, but nothing has to make sense.
Don't let your existential angst drive you mad.
There are basically two parts to suffering.
1) There is what is unlikable about existence, pain, loss, aging, disease, etc. These are things generally outside of our control.
2) There is not liking what is not likable. This is entirely in our control.
The vast majority of our suffering is from #2, not liking what is not likable. We generally have coping abilities for #1 because those have been with us from the dawn of time and they have discrete existence, or kill us. But we've only had brains big enough for #2 very recently, evolutionarily speaking, and we don't have built in coping mechanisms.
But we can learn coping mechanisms. How to discipline the mind and turn it from destructive behaviors to constructive ones. And then not only is suffering #2 reduced and ended, but the same principles can reduce the impact of suffering #1.
It is impossible to make such a comparison. You can't know their lives well enough and you know your life too well and with too much personal bias.
Remember, there is no necessary learning. What teaches you one thing, might teach another something else or even destroy them.
I recommend owning yourself. I know it is popular to blame one's parents for every thing, but once you moved out your wounds became your responsibility, to heal or keep as you might choose.
Blaming others for your emotions and behaviors is not productive.
Nothing. What are you trying to understand?
You are mistaken. People can be just as painfully oblivious as happily.
Paying attention is a skill in and of itself. It is something you can practice and improve. It is perhaps one of the most key under valued skills we have along with compassion and wisdom.
You seem to be wanting every experience to teach you something. happiness is happiness. It can have causes, but like all emotions it can be just because.
I'm sorry you have decided that you must emphasize suffering.
Neither learning nor happiness actually require it.
If that is the purpose you have given yourself, then that is fine. But purpose is not inherent. Your purpose is not mine, nor is any purpose required or necessary. Some people really crave purpose. Others do not.
When not even life itself is mandatory, how can anything else be mandatory?
I try not to let exotic experiences become excuses for escapism.
You should consider the irony of first pointing out the drawbacks of immortality and then craving immortality by the end of the post.
Whatever we might be or not be when we are not this is irrelevant. This is what we are and our time to be this is short. Seize this moment.
Messing with your proprioception and knesthetic sense can be fun. I remember one time I was walking through a crowd and forgot which person in the crowd I was. Very odd sensation. Another time I became confused about why I had so many projections from my torso.
What about Spirituality which doesn't envolve any supernatural?
You are perhaps familiar with hypogogic states (when you are on the threshold of passing into and out of consciousness) and the effects of endorphins (pain relief, happy, floaty) and ketamine like substances (disassociates) which the brain releases during times when it is in pain and in shock, particularly under conditions where one might pass out?
Some people become addicted to this combination and recreate them via deprivations and self mutilation. That can become a very dangerous and self destructive path as can be over indulgence in drugs with mimic these chemicals.
But as you noticed the occasional experience is quite interesting and often feels full of personal significance.
I think you should be more careful making in depth claims about the history of people you do not know. There is no reason to think spidergoat has never been touched by these all to common experiences. Certainly I have had all that you listed and yet I've come to a very diferent understanding than you seem to have.
One of our key survival features as a species is the diversity of our reactions to any particular circumstance.
Again, you are projecting yourself on others. Not every one does either of these. Nor are they necessarily ineffectual for every one or short lived. People are extremely diverse in their coping mechanisms. There are even people who enjoy suffering, many xtians for example feel it makes them "holy." Some people enjoy the the endorphins of self inflicted suffering. You can generalize from your personal methods here.
Many do just fine without any "spiritual." In fact I find being earthy and spontanious a good cure for the spiritual doldrums, which you seem to be ignoring as the downside of being spiritual.
Wow! That's quite a load of arrogence you got going there. I feel quite humbled by your prowess at being patronizingly offensive. As I said, all this spiritual has its own downside.
If you are going to play the spiritual card you can't blame others for any lack of comprehention. If they fail to understand it is not about them. It is that you lack sufficient grasp of the concept to communicate it clearly. If you have your understanding clear, you will know what to say, how much to say and how to say it so that there is no confusion on their part at all.
Would not an evolved soul be beyond judging other souls as "primitive?"
You cannot win a war against a tactic.
Man are you naive. You have no concept of what we could do if we didn't have a social conscious restraining our actions.
If a fundamentalist government ever seized power in the US it would make the petty actions of the Muslim fundies look like nothing. Hitler, Stalin and Mao would seem like a cake walk.
You people do not appreciate the fire you are playing with or the capacity for destruction we currently posses.
We are generally slow to organize, which many take as weakness of purpose. But once rolling we are tenacious and driven by an unreasoning spirit to win.
Look at how long we've been willing to fight an unpopular and unnecessary war where we are purposefully keeping the kid gloves on. We have a kill ratio of about 1:3000 in Iraq which at the onset of hostilities in gulf war 1 was the most powerful nation in the area. We didn't even break a sweat crushing them.
Now imagine a popular no holds barred war where we are willing to employ our actual weapons of mass destruction.
Take my advise. When you find a sleeping monster, don't kick it awake.
Oh come on, he reeks of Abrahamic new age. The "I am" is a dead give away.
Learn the parts of suffering you can exercise control over and learn to exercise control over them.
Learn the parts of happiness you can exercise control over and learn to control them.
Practice.
To Swarm:
I can tell you have not suffered enough (neither did scapegoat). I am sure you have never gone hungry in your life, or have been about to be raped more than once. I can tell you have never gone to another country and tried to survive by yourself not knowing the language and not having money.I can tell you have never suffered the death of someone your loved very much like your father or mother or a sibling ( I am not talking abouth the death of those relatives who we are not too emotionally attached) why I can tell?because you are too casual about the subject of suffering.
I can tell you are very smart and you might be too young still. And that is all right, I did not suffer much until I went and started confronting life by myself with out been sheltered by my family.
I like the fact that you are interested in these subjects and that you challenge the established knowledge. I hope you are also willing to go
out in the world and expose yourself to real life, and when life start getting complicated and you are unable to change things no matter what you do, or how hard you try. Then these thoughts may be of some use for you. Just keep you mind open for now.
About the primitive/ evolved issue we all start by being primitive ( with animals' concepts of right and wrong) including me you and evry human on earth, then we became evolved. There is the same value on both souls the primitive and the evolved the difference is a matter of training?. Every graduate ( evolved soul) started in kindergarden(primitive soul), is the same person yet it went to different stages. That is why we not too quick to crucify, condemn others even the worst criminals.
I might have been a murderer in a past life when I was more primitive, who knows? then I evolved and I came to this life to help cure people.
I can tell you have not suffered enough (neither did scapegoat). I am sure you have never gone hungry in your life, or have been about to be raped more than once. I can tell you have never gone to another country and tried to survive by yourself not knowing the language and not having money.I can tell you have never suffered the death of someone your loved very much like your father or mother or a sibling ( I am not talking abouth the death of those relatives who we are not too emotionally attached) why I can tell?because you are too casual about the subject of suffering.
I can tell you are very smart and you might be too young still. And that is all right, I did not suffer much until I went and started confronting life by myself with out been sheltered by my family.
I like the fact that you are interested in these subjects and that you challenge the established knowledge. I hope you are also willing to go
out in the world and expose yourself to real life, and when life start getting complicated and you are unable to change things no matter what you do, or how hard you try. Then these thoughts may be of some use for you. Just keep you mind open for now.
About the primitive/ evolved issue we all start by being primitive ( with animals' concepts of right and wrong) including me you and evry human on earth, then we became evolved. There is the same value on both souls the primitive and the evolved the difference is a matter of training?. Every graduate ( evolved soul) started in kindergarden(primitive soul), is the same person yet it went to different stages. That is why we not too quick to crucify, condemn others even the worst criminals.
I might have been a murderer in a past life when I was more primitive, who knows? then I evolved and I came to this life to help cure people.
What is that?