Religious Experience
- Thread starter duendy
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we are DENIED real direct spiritual experience, both by the two -seemingly opposing-streams, fundamental religion and
orthodox science. the former demonizes it, and the latter ridicules, reduces, and dismsses it.
Thus even if one does go ahead and has a spiitual experience -they fear talking about it, sharing it, for fear of being seen 'weird' or 'mentally ill'. This is clear from some even here at this thread who--even though its supposed to Be about 'religion', are kind of reluctant to share ACTUAL spiritual experience. howEVER going on and on and on about old dead text Is considered religion
Now, as i said, there is nothing wrong with looking at scriptureal mythology. in fact it is good to get a graps of all that. but we ALSO much MUCh more deeply NEEd freedom to explore and speak about ACTUAL spiritual experience
It is a huge part of us that has been and continues to be suppressed and repressed. Thus people lives may feel empty, and we dont know why.
I have mentioned spontaneous spiritual experience which inspired this threaed--the sudden spontaneous awareness of being utterly interconnected with this amazing world and universe.
And there is also spiritual experience inspired through partaking of hallucinogens. That Driect spiritual experience is seen as taboo by our modern culture is evidenced by the WAr it wages AGAINST doing so...its 'war on drugs' which very much inCLUDe hallucinogens
so we have that, and also the shame attached to speaking about natrual spiritual experiences that just come out of the blue
orthodox science. the former demonizes it, and the latter ridicules, reduces, and dismsses it.
Thus even if one does go ahead and has a spiitual experience -they fear talking about it, sharing it, for fear of being seen 'weird' or 'mentally ill'. This is clear from some even here at this thread who--even though its supposed to Be about 'religion', are kind of reluctant to share ACTUAL spiritual experience. howEVER going on and on and on about old dead text Is considered religion
Now, as i said, there is nothing wrong with looking at scriptureal mythology. in fact it is good to get a graps of all that. but we ALSO much MUCh more deeply NEEd freedom to explore and speak about ACTUAL spiritual experience
It is a huge part of us that has been and continues to be suppressed and repressed. Thus people lives may feel empty, and we dont know why.
I have mentioned spontaneous spiritual experience which inspired this threaed--the sudden spontaneous awareness of being utterly interconnected with this amazing world and universe.
And there is also spiritual experience inspired through partaking of hallucinogens. That Driect spiritual experience is seen as taboo by our modern culture is evidenced by the WAr it wages AGAINST doing so...its 'war on drugs' which very much inCLUDe hallucinogens
so we have that, and also the shame attached to speaking about natrual spiritual experiences that just come out of the blue
I disagree about the orthodox science part.duendy said:
All science does is try and understand something.
I can have what you may call a "spiritual experience" - and through science I can try and understand exactly what that experience was (how it was caused and why it affected me the way it did). But science won't affect how it affected me, or the fact that it did. I will still have experienced it. I won't call it "spiritual" but that is just a label.
You can listen to a piece of music and find it moving, and be brought to tears by it. This is the "experience".
Science can tell you that what you hear are merely sound waves, and can tell you all about the harmonics, frequency etc.
It can tell you how the soundwaves interact with your ear, and how the impulses from your ear interact with your brain.
It can probably also tell you about the chemical change in your body that results in the tears.
But it won't stop you from the actual "experience".
The thing of experiential knowledge is that it is internal. It can not be expressed or taught in words, which is why it must be experienced to be known. This is why Zen Buddhism uses koans to teach. These do not impart any information in themselves, but are riddles designed to bring the student to a point of experiential realisation, and therefore gaining of true knowledge.
Experiential knowledge is essentially knowledge of self - through which can, arguably, be gained knowledge of god. Even if one did have any of this type of experiential knowledge, no matter how much they wished to impart it to others in words, they could not.
Experiential knowledge is essentially knowledge of self - through which can, arguably, be gained knowledge of god. Even if one did have any of this type of experiential knowledge, no matter how much they wished to impart it to others in words, they could not.
duendy said:
In the late middle ages, the crime of drug taking was called "gaining illegal knowledge" !!! called this by the church of the time.
The bible talks about "violent assaults on the kingdom of heaven". Heaven can be interpreted as higher levels of consciousness. The violent assaults can be interpreted as people trying to gain access to these higher states of consciousness through the taking of drugs.
I neither intend to condemn or condone the taking of drugs by these remarks.
d))))hhaaa. theyh WOULD say that. reason?
their set-up, which is an elitist hierarchy. So you have middle-men (the priests) in between you--the invidual-- and 'God' as THEY define 'him. SEE? They patent 'spirituality' totally devoiding it of its origianl understanding of DIRECT experience!
Duendy,
Yes, and that is why we should always try to get back to original source material (or direct experience) as much as possible when studying religion.
Do not let others interpret it for you. Do not necessarily take the word of the worlds, priests, clerics and holy men. They often misinterpret, sometimes willfully.
We must think for ourselves.
Jesus denounced the Jewish priests of the time, but the later christian priests fall into the same trap, and end up in the same condition as the jewish priests that Jesus denounced in the first place. While at the same time espousing Jesus's teaching - hypocrites.
their set-up, which is an elitist hierarchy. So you have middle-men (the priests) in between you--the invidual-- and 'God' as THEY define 'him. SEE? They patent 'spirituality' totally devoiding it of its origianl understanding of DIRECT experience!
Duendy,
Yes, and that is why we should always try to get back to original source material (or direct experience) as much as possible when studying religion.
Do not let others interpret it for you. Do not necessarily take the word of the worlds, priests, clerics and holy men. They often misinterpret, sometimes willfully.
We must think for ourselves.
Jesus denounced the Jewish priests of the time, but the later christian priests fall into the same trap, and end up in the same condition as the jewish priests that Jesus denounced in the first place. While at the same time espousing Jesus's teaching - hypocrites.
cool thread. at least one factor left out of the idea "Direct perception without interpretation leaves no room for delusion - but also leaves no room for growth." is cognition. pristine cognition is knowing without attaching the past to the knowledge as far as interpretation goes. in religious experience verbal interpretation is secondary if at all. it is not necessaru tho. it is quite true that when we experience or interpret experience by way of the past we corrupt it horribly.
ive had what you might call religious experiences but for me, in every case, i didnt have to call it anything, it called itself. this thing were talking about is a moment where we connect or align to a greater meaning or an expanded view of things. it usually involves realization, where a collection of relative experiences merge into a truth that is self evident without any sort of interpretation necessary to the experience r. so it steps into a sort of backwards logic that to try to put your experience into some context with language is to automatically corrupt it or take away from it. it follows that people will likely not receive it anywhere near like you did. they might even take it from your explanation that youre a liar, because in a way you are. youre trying to convert something pristine and inexplicably tangible into a form that is unnatural and necessarily diminished. altho you may be excited about what you experienced it just so happens that what were calling religious experience is something that is intensely personal and does not fit nor does it belong anywhere or to anyone else but yourself. you solved such a great puzzle for yourself that it seems as thought it was given to you. because it was meant for you. pearls before swine, and you do yourself an huge injustice to expose such a wonderful thing in a demeaning way to people who will immediately disrespect it upon hearing the corrupted version.. even in the case where the person, as someone mentioned, can relate to the general idea that you had something unique happen but not at all to the details of it. it still detracts from it. keep it for yourself., if you keep it silent and to yourself it will always remain pure and unquestionable. it will always have the fullness of it meaning. it will be a truth to you and when it comes to our finding our truths.. our findings are validated in their discovery, no one elses opinions of it are needed at all.
ive had what you might call religious experiences but for me, in every case, i didnt have to call it anything, it called itself. this thing were talking about is a moment where we connect or align to a greater meaning or an expanded view of things. it usually involves realization, where a collection of relative experiences merge into a truth that is self evident without any sort of interpretation necessary to the experience r. so it steps into a sort of backwards logic that to try to put your experience into some context with language is to automatically corrupt it or take away from it. it follows that people will likely not receive it anywhere near like you did. they might even take it from your explanation that youre a liar, because in a way you are. youre trying to convert something pristine and inexplicably tangible into a form that is unnatural and necessarily diminished. altho you may be excited about what you experienced it just so happens that what were calling religious experience is something that is intensely personal and does not fit nor does it belong anywhere or to anyone else but yourself. you solved such a great puzzle for yourself that it seems as thought it was given to you. because it was meant for you. pearls before swine, and you do yourself an huge injustice to expose such a wonderful thing in a demeaning way to people who will immediately disrespect it upon hearing the corrupted version.. even in the case where the person, as someone mentioned, can relate to the general idea that you had something unique happen but not at all to the details of it. it still detracts from it. keep it for yourself., if you keep it silent and to yourself it will always remain pure and unquestionable. it will always have the fullness of it meaning. it will be a truth to you and when it comes to our finding our truths.. our findings are validated in their discovery, no one elses opinions of it are needed at all.
wow check it out. so i consider this further. you tell me if theres a chance that it might be how it looks to me right now. is it that a persons " religious experience(s)" is what is responsible for a religion being created around it, with observances and practices (religious ceremony) created by followers in order to try and re-create the featured persons enlightenment for themselves? i think so. i think this is why religion seems to fail so badly. how many more Buddhas have we been made aware of, that arrived at that place by religiously practicing and attempting to observe intellectually what the Buddha is said to have experienced directly by the ways and means that he was said to have utilized? how many jesus like people has the religious practice his followers use to know what he knew created,to our knowledge? im not aware of even one religion turning out even one person who was comparable to the person upon whom the religion was founded. that we could hope to know what any other person came to know by way of mimicking their thinking and practices is fucking absurd!! omg! doomed to fail. yes in my opinion Buddhism is pretty nice religion for it practices non-harming but as of right now its crystal clear that any Buddhist who is sitting like Buddha hoping to realize or become anything like what the Buddha realized or became is flat out fooling them selves and wasting their precious time. all other religion, the same. the only true " religion" if you could or should call it that that the Buddha or the Christ gave us of any use was where they took off all on their owns and walked their own walk their own way, abandoning the world view constructs that were already in place in them and around them previously. it is unquestionable in my mind in this moment, where it wasnt only moments before, that religions based on a persons experienced are destined to fail, and are useless as far as gathering what their featured seeker and finder found and became. ha. :: walks away::
VossistArts said:
Yes, yes, yes. Now we're getting somewhere. Christ and buddha found god within. They siad we have to look for god / enlightenment within ourselves. They said follow us, go where we are going. But we did not - only a pale imitation of that.
Coventional religous teaching is useful and necessary only to cooerce and prepare us to reach the point where we may have direct religious experience for ourselves. Jesus, Buddha and many others like them, did not conform to conventional teaching of the day, they had open minds and open hearts and found truth / god within.
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There are so many amazing reasons to believe there must be a creator. Do you think we are just floating around space by chance. When you see a baby take it's first breath after it is born. You have to know that there is a creator. What do you believe happens when you die? What do you believe your purpose for existing this very moment is? I believe that the Bible is God's Holy Word. It is not about a religious experience at all. It is about a relationship with God. I'd encourage you to research and find out for yourself the truth. 
catsi1 said:There are so many amazing reasons to believe there must be a creator. Do you think we are just floating around space by chance. When you see a baby take it's first breath after it is born. You have to know that there is a creator. What do you believe happens when you die? What do you believe your purpose for existing this very moment is? I believe that the Bible is God's Holy Word. It is not about a religious experience at all. It is about a relationship with God. I'd encourage you to research and find out for yourself the truth.
I can't think of any single experience, thing, event, thought, or possibility that falls outside of the realm of my relationship with what you like to call God. Its all about experience. There is nothing else BUT experience and this moment. I don't consider what you like to call God to be an actual God so I dont call the creative resource, whatever that is or isnt, a God. One need not do any sort of research to find truth, it is in our hands in every way in this very moment. I think the idea is to both realize this and to apprehend it all at once. But then, that's MY idea. You can have your way and I can have mine and they can have theirs and it will be fine. I think we're here to find our Way. To what our Way may take us is yet unknown despite even the grandest faith we may have that our convictions about what that is, are correct.
Aren't we explorers now?
think about the Renaissance for a moment. before that the only source of authority in the West had been the Bible......with the Renaissance it was the discovery of Greek ideas, etc that expanded the worldviews
But now, with th World Wide Web we have unprecedented access to all forms of information. YET what do we get? sadly people who actually use the Web and living in 21st century, STILL stuck in pre-RENAISSANCE mode carrying on with bibical literalsim from the Dark Ages
USE THE WEB!...look outside the box yer in
regarding people who just go their Way like Christ and Buddha......yes. so go YOUR way. Explore. but keep Nature central. Nature is real, and needs all our help and support. especially right now. os i'd suggest stay well clear of beliefs that put it down and seek escape, like Buddhism and Christianity, and all patriarchal religions and beliefs
think about the Renaissance for a moment. before that the only source of authority in the West had been the Bible......with the Renaissance it was the discovery of Greek ideas, etc that expanded the worldviews
But now, with th World Wide Web we have unprecedented access to all forms of information. YET what do we get? sadly people who actually use the Web and living in 21st century, STILL stuck in pre-RENAISSANCE mode carrying on with bibical literalsim from the Dark Ages
USE THE WEB!...look outside the box yer in
regarding people who just go their Way like Christ and Buddha......yes. so go YOUR way. Explore. but keep Nature central. Nature is real, and needs all our help and support. especially right now. os i'd suggest stay well clear of beliefs that put it down and seek escape, like Buddhism and Christianity, and all patriarchal religions and beliefs
catsi1 said:There are so many amazing reasons to believe there must be a creator. Do you think we are just floating around space by chance. When you see a baby take it's first breath after it is born. You have to know that there is a creator. What do you believe happens when you die? What do you believe your purpose for existing this very moment is? I believe that the Bible is God's Holy Word. It is not about a religious experience at all. It is about a relationship with God. I'd encourage you to research and find out for yourself the truth.
Explorers, yes. We are all on our own spiritual journey.
Research, I have read the bible (more than once), I have also read the Quran, the Torah and many books on Buddhisn and Hindism.
Can you say the same?
But the truth is not to be found simply by the reading of books. We must think for ourselves, experience for ourselves and interpret for ourselves.
By all means read your bible, but with an open mind to new ideas and information. If noone had an open mind to new information, none of the worlds major religions would have come into being! (even christianity)
I have an open mind to your point of view. I constantly challange my own ideas and beliefs. Do you have an open mind to my point of view?
Think out of the box - yes definately.
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Yes.catsi1 said:
Well, yes, it was "created" - by the combination of egg and sperm. This is called "Biology".catsi1 said:
We either get burned to ash and scattered to the four winds, or we get encased in wood and burried 6-feet deep, where eventually the bacteria already in our bodies starts to munch away in a process known as "decomposition".catsi1 said:
I don't have a purpose other than what I chose to give myself from moment to moment. At this precise moment it is to try and look as though I am doing far more work than my boss thinks!catsi1 said:
What is a relationship without experience?catsi1 said:
I'd encourage you to do likewise.catsi1 said:I'd encourage you to research and find out for yourself the truth.
Sarkus said:Yes.
Well, yes, it was "created" - by the combination of egg and sperm. This is called "Biology".
d)))yes. dont be patronizing. we KNOW that is called biology. And ver awe inspiring it is too. i have a video of the whole process. it is AWE-some!
We either get burned to ash and scattered to the four winds, or we get encased in wood and burried 6-feet deep, where eventually the bacteria already in our bodies starts to munch away in a process known as "decomposition".
d)))))ye. again. we KNOW we rot. we are not 8 year olds. what's with the constant patronization already?
I don't have a purpose other than what I chose to give myself from moment to moment. At this precise moment it is to try and look as though I am doing far more work than my boss thinks!
d)))right. so you are under your boss? do you LIKE your job? if you could do anything else what would it be? what's your dream?
What is a relationship without experience?
I'd encourage you to do likewise.
Well this thread is called 'religious experience'. have you NEVEr had some experience that has mADE you feel differently about yourself in the world....and please, DONT roll eyes. it's tiresome. and rude