Sadhana does seem to be "cultural religion."
why?
because the tradition can be traced to a geographical tract of land?
No.
But because of its rationalistic, selective, ego-driven aspects.
Namely, "culture" is something we can choose, argue about, be selective about, defend, claim to be experts in, use it for self-presentation, against others, shift to and from.
Religion is characteristically not like that; at least as far as I understood religion.
For me, the issue is that upon joining a church, any church, one has to believe and vow that said church is divine and infallible, that it is the one and only, or at least the best path to God.
if by church you mean ecclesiastical administration, you are not really approaching the issue sadhana
Sadhana is prescribed by the ecclesiastical administration and hierarchy.
That is a vow that I do not find easy to make.
It doesn't make sense to me to believe that The Absolute Truth could be arrived at via one's personal likes or dislikes, or by a decision-making process like listing and assessing the pros and cons.
So the absolute truth is so sublime we are constitutionally devoid of any qualities that resonate with it?
This is one of the first things a newcomer to religion is likely to hear, yes.
"You don't have a clue, you're a rascal. Sit and listen. Don't think, don't feel, don't talk, don't ask any questions."
As I have been telling you over and over.
And if one doesn't get the you-clueless-rascal treatment, then at least one gets the guilt-trip of
"You know God and you know what God wants, but you are wilfully rejecting Him!"
Once one hears them from proselytizers of different religions, each of them having their own, quite different ideas about who God is and what God wants, the whole thing gets a little bizzare, to say the least.
Does that make our existence constitutionally separate from the absolute truth?
Ha ha, try to speak straighforwardly to a theist about that corollary! :bawl:
Because there is more to do be done for the cause of spirituality than god choosing people from a state of total oblivion - eg sadhana
And it's your sadhana to talk to people?
And I'm supposed to believe that you are acting for the cause of spirituality, and that Mind Over Matter is acting for the cause of spirituality, and Jan and all the others?
Why don't you try to convert Mind Over Matter? Or Cifo, Sam, Adstar etc.?
You can't talk about falleness period unless you have some clue what you are fallen from
People keep telling me I am fallen. I myself am not so sure. Not that I think I am not fallen. Just that there are many ways to look at this.
For example, most theists often strike me as upset, angry, hostile. I am not eager to follow or worship someone whom I perceive as upset, angry, hostile. In fact, I find it repugnant to do so.
Then I guess you have a working model for saintliness
even a doctor will tell a sick patient that the path to recovery will involve tremendous hardship and pain. This doesn't mean that healthy life is characterized by hardship and pain
It is not the same.
Hardship and pain are one thing; repugnance is something else.
Repugnant is that which one finds immoral, irrational, unacceptable, wrong.
In spiritual matters, at no point should a person have to do things they find repugnant in order to make spiritual progress.
Because having to do repugnant things for the sake of spiritual progress would mean that our existence is constitutionally separate from the Absolute Truth; that the Absolute Truth is so sublime that we are constitutionally devoid of any qualities that resonate with it.
No, I don't consider her saintly. But that is just my opinion. If it is the objective truth, that I do not know.
regardless you still are presenting some clue of saintliness, so your previous comments about how there is no way to fathom who is saintly doesn't hold
What I see as being unresolvable here is the problem of many perspectives - how to figure out which idea of saintliness is the right one and which one to go with.
Are you a practitioner of sadhana siddhi? Is that why we are having these talks?
What on earth makes you think it would have been otherwise?
What would have been otherwise?
Couldn't you be a kripa-siddhi?
And if you are a practitioner of sadhana siddhi, how did you, prior to taking up sadhana, decide that the one course of sadhana you are going to practice, is the right one?
Surely you must have had an awareness of your own fallible human nature.
But despite this fallible human nature, you somehow figured out which religion is the right one; or at least you believe you have figured it out. How did that go?
Why didn't you choose Roman Catholicism, or another math, for example?
)