Because YOU let them.
How can a person be sure that they have made the right decision about God?
- Thread starter wynn
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Because YOU let them.
Lucy please use appropriate quoting so your posts can be read. You have been around the block a few times (based on your post count).
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Lucy please use appropriate quoting so your posts can be read. You have been around the block a few times (based on your post count).
What appropriate quoting? I have attributed Signal's quotes after his name and my response directly after.
at a certain point it simply becomes useless. Its the nature of mental speculation. Kind of like one can go asking "and why is that?" forever (until it gets bridled of course, something reality is quite good at)
not really.
one can tag "it could be" to counter or problematize absolutely anything for an absolutely indefinite time
In accordance with her own values of course
So what usually happens when two certainties meet (in the minds eye of a seer)?
I mean take the example of your own aspirations vs the guy singing about big booty bitches.
Is there are a requirement for them to be both entertained in some dualistic sense of all things being equal, or do you feel more comfortable contextualizing their perspective within a greater one of your own?
Or alternatively, if big booty bitches is where its at, we are both losers.
Do you think major and minor have no applications on a universal level?
And alternatively, the experience of our will being contextualized by greater forces on a moment by moment basis tend to hint at another position....
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just because one's will can be surmounted by greater elements doesn't make it useless.
I mean just because one can get thrown in jail against one's will doesn't mean how, when and where one utilizes it a non-issue in the pursuit of happiness (unless of course one was working out of the value that true happiness requires that one exist in a reality that places one's will as supreme)
there's heaps of things that bridle it - at the very basic level annamoya will do the job
There's no possibility of acting or evaluating or anything without values.
IOW there is no conscious existence without values.
actually the closest one come's to the non-values position is buddhism or the like ... but even then, there often works out to be a host of values surrounding renunciation at work
Extrapolate a bit on why you feel that way, and we will have an idea of the values at work.
This probably isn't the best forum for such a discussion, since it gets waylaid by atheists.
I'm not sure why I feel that way. As far as I can see, ever since I can remember, from kidergarden on, people around me have been telling me that my values are all wrong and that I need to change, to become "normal" and "like others". Somehow, I never could, no matter how much I tried. I have tried so hard to convince myself that meat eating is superior to vegetarianism, or that casual sex is superior to sex only for procreation, or that one-life-time view is superior to the one of reincarnation. And I have always failed at such attempts to convince myself otherwise.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Again why do you have to convince yourself of anything? :shrug:
Why do others play such a large role what or how you value?
Meat eaters don't care if vegetarians think their habit superior.
Christians aren't going to lose any sleep over your beliefs because they think your going to hell anyway.
Sexually active people don't care if you sleep alone at night.
And those who believe in one life couldn't give a toss if you believe you will come back as a donkey.
I mean why are you so centered on what others think of your beliefs? They will live their lives as THEY see fit. I suggest you do the same and stop mulling over it.
If you are in a debate on opinion they will hold their point just as you will hold yours.:shrug:
You don't see Sandy or Lori wringing their hands no matter how kooky others may think their beliefs.
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Because it makes life so damn hard to be so radically different than others.
Have you any idea what it is like to always be an exception everyhere?
Life is hard enough as it is, so why make it even harder by indulging in beliefs and behaviors that only make it harder?
No, because there are so many people who are like them and they have a society where they fit in. I don't.
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Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
What on earth makes you think you're an exception? Self-absorbed perhaps, neurotic perhaps but not an exception even with those two traits.
Do you really believe you are the only 'new agey', celibate, vegetarian? I can't remember the last time I asked someone in person whether they were getting laid or not. I can't remember anyone having fingers pointed at them because they don't eat fish or meat? Hell owning a hybrid and being vegan is the new 'thing'.
You think there are a lot of people like Sandy and Lori?
:roflmao:
Trust me when you look at the world they belong to the christian fringe. I don't know ANYONE, NOT ONE person who reflects their beliefs and even if you live in some dinky town full of christian fundies you have to have some backbone if you are going to live a vital life.
All you are doing right now is pitying yourself. Hell people would rather an LG, whom I happily mock from time to time, than someone who hasn't the blood to live by their own convictions.
You look more neurotic than Sandy and Lori put together! Not because you doubt yourself but because you have values that you are afraid to live by based on what OTHERS believe. If you are afraid of brimstone and fire then be a closet whatever you are and live a christian life. Or maybe you should just get over yourself.
Ah to hell with ya!
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What is "the christian way"?
I had to chuckle at your suggestion that I "fit in", when honestly the most difficult and frustrating consequence of my spiritual experiences has been isolation.
so exactly opposite of Buddhism. :shrug:
I worship god. You worship your intellect.
No, from a material standpoint. Its hard to reconcile and share spiritual experiences in a material world.
*************
M*W: A man's god is a woman's intellect.
Which, as I added, was part of my point. But then, a vague heuristic device like the quote of yours above could serve as is of little use if one does not trust one's intution.
Again my point is that you have not crossed the gap to Signal's doubt. You are simply stating ideas, again, that cannot reach Signal.
Again, these two related current threads and Signal's dialogue speak against this leading to certainty at this time. IOW your answers are as if more of your statements of certainty will help the situation. Further I think it is an epistemological issue for Signal and not so much a value issue. The boundaries may be hazy, but I have pressed on the values side of the equation and found that Signal is skeptical of using values, in the final analysis, to evaluate.
Sure, I do. But that is not really addressing Signal's point. Signal, it seems to me, is searching for that greater perspective and, I think, finds a lack of understanding of the complexity of the dilemma in those who present as being certain.
EDIT: I would also like to add that given the history of religion in relation to sex and certain groups the monotheisms have always felt so superior to, the example comes off smug in a way I do not like. We could have a 'nice' video of people praying or meditating, while in that seemingly spiritual scene all sorts of denial of sex and bodies and hatred and terror related to those issues are denied in a gooey stream seeping out of their backsides into the ether for the rest of us to deal with. These guys may even have an ironic take on what they are doing and be a lot closer to integration than a lot of spiritual types.
Many pure types have spread ugliness behind the scenes, and I am not simply talking about sexual abuse at the ashram or in the church, but on an energetic level.
So, frankly, the choice of example seems shallow, cliched and a sign that old judgments found in religion East and West are still present, even today, when we should have learned that all that hatred of our 'animal natures' is simply that, hatred.
I am not saying the guys are deep, it just seemed like a classic, old dichotemy that I don't want to simply nod and go along with.
Most people do it, even Signal I would guess. But Signal is approaching, here, believers and their certainties. Certainties which, I believe, seem not quite to understand the role of their own certainty in a dialogue.
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Please don't take the potential negative symbols involved as at all my point, but what you are asking reminds me of Buridan's Ass...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan's_ass
The problem with this is that the donkey will always choose. Though in your case it may not be either of these choices.
To me the formulation is confused. There is no method all people will use. I am referring to that word 'one'. It will have to be how you choose, through your own values, skills, intuition, intelligence and needs.
I know this seems fallible to you. But what isn't fallible?
You will choose to live a certain way.
Also, not choosing is a choice. And I do not mean this in some banal way. I mean you are choosing to support your own requirements, needs and, in a sense, the inadequacy of their presentations and the experiences they have brought to you so far.
I also think it helps to break down the process to a day to day level. What seems like the best action now? I get the sense this will seem painful and futile, given that you do not know and you want to know.
Another possiblity is to search for experts in the two traditions. In my own process I did end up meeting a great many teachers/masters/leaders and when I felt disillusioned with what they were saying, I brought this to them, and their reactions tended to speed up my process of rejecting them and their traditions. I want to add that I experienced some of these people as producing magical experiences. Some could radically speed up my meditation learning. Some could directly still my mind. Others had a great deal of insight. I did not end up rejecting certain traditions because they seemed impotent.
Rather the dialogue and my experiences made me feel that I did not like what they were doing.
This happened when I was younger with Christianity.
And even in Christianity there are people who will respect your questions, doubts, torment....etc. In fact they expect this to be a part of the process for some. To me it has sounded like most of the Christians you have come in contact with have been fairly shallow, mechanized types. I am not saying that Christianity is right for you, but I think there is out there a more challenging and responsive version, and frankly I think you need to find that. Whatever you end you deciding after encountering it.
The reasons I ended up where I am are very much based on intuition and a felt sense. I do feel that intellectual insights confirm, afterward, my choice for me. But it simply felt right. In fact it felt like if it was wrong, then it did not matter what other choice I made, because finally I was doing something that fit me and what I wanted at the deepest levels. I suppose along the way insights I encountered did give me little boosts. I would be impressed and I was impressed by other people doing the same thing, very....But it felt like coming home.
I am not saying it will be like this for you. But I'll throw out how I got there anyway, in case it might help.
So they failed you.
So they failed you.
That's why I suggest trying to find experts and a number of them. Hopefully some you both like and respect. You may not have the means to do this, but as much as you can I think this is important. I also don't think this environment can do much on this issue. I think LG presents a decent take on the Eastern approaches, but then I think you are, in the end, as well versed yourself. And as you've said you haven't felt like the problem has really been understood. Not being in person makes a difference, I think. You get a real feel for how the person lives the beliefs. And what is, supposedly, good and holy or enlightened.
I am sure you have done some of this, but it seems critical to me. Get the best versions possible. A bunch of 'fundamentalists' triggering your terror of hell and online not quite in synch Eastern philosophy based responses keeps things on a very mental level only.
I don't know about that. How can the one or God not understand your confusion and pain and accept your reaching out in whatever form you put your prayer in, now, where you are at?
There was a Hindu guru who used to scream at God when somethign bad happened to one of his devotees. He used to say that it is not what one says to God, it is that one relates to God that matters. And even Jesus was almost critical of God on the cross. Zen monks bitch and complain, at least some of them. There is room in most traditions to let through the current mess, regardless of what the little petty tyrants and know it alls have managed to glean.
No, my intellect is it's own reward. No worship required.