The Scientific Spirituality: Written by a Buddhist.

Greets all

For the past 11 years of my life I've dedicated obsessive time to spiritual discovery. I began with christianity, but quickly shifted to taoism when I was given the dao de ching by a buddhist university student.

After daoism, when things got bad in my life after that peak in spirituality you get when it's fresh. I needed other things, so I started looking into certain aspects of demonolatry and had throughout my whole life been in communication with pagans from around the world, and in a very diverse town in England.

Exposed to most of the major concepts of the universe through childhood I managed to take all of them for granted. Later, buddhism struck me and wedged itself right in there, made full sense and required nothing from me (for any kind of divine consequence).

That is a very brief and undetailed description of the multitude of vivid lucid visualizations I had, many beliefs in many things - and entire worlds of gods in my mind. So strong that I could feel them before I was imagining them. All of them becoming quite unimportant in the end.

I was always interested in science and it's application to meditation and understanding of reality. Because spirituality for me is not a set of beliefs, it's the willingness to be sensetive. To life, to the miraculousness of what's happening and an observation of the real magic behind everything.

Science is the kid who's watching the magician and points out that he saw how he did it, he then explains it to everyone. Many people are fascinated, but most are outraged - they feel like the entire magic trick has been ruined.

However, I am here to say no it hasn't, watch again. This time knowing how he does it, and you see something you wonder at. Because somehow it works again, you don't quite see it... The magician alters the trick purposefully - this time with a greater result!

You can take that how you like, as a metaphor for a god - or just a metaphor for the experience of awe being increased by knowledge at the world you can see.

A scientific spirituality does not rely on deities, though they can be used to create a sense of relationship which is there, but not in a form we recognize as social animal behaviour... Like a mother or father, we do come from it. It is okay to look up, and see your origin in the heavens.

A scientific spirituality takes it's philosophy from both our ignorance of meaning, and our understanding of what we know. We can say 'I am reincarnated', because we may understand that 'I' is in each person who says it. Like two candle flames, it is the same process of energy transformation that has taken a beautiful flicker - and shares it's process with all others who flicker the same.

Death to science is one of the most ancient spiritual principles ever. The non-occuring. This is something which you can see everywhere. Life stops occuring in one place, but light the same candle it is or isn't the same flame, light a different candle - it is, or isn't the same flame.

Flame is the same as flame.

So we can say reincarnation, we can say that - that which occurs as I, occurs again. Elsewhere, Elsetime.

So I would ask you to consider Science, as the poetry of spiritual hunger. Mankind calling out to her universe, and her universe calling back. Some go to church to find reality, some go to the laboratory - to both it gifts. Like two poems of the same circumstance.

When I say that science is poetry, what I mean is that by allowing it to take on poetic power we can find the same spiritual power in it.

My current beliefs are ones where each day as I walk I know reality as it is, as much as I need to know it to proceed my meaning - which is to live entirely immersed in the world, pulling up those that I see falling. I consider this a good spiritual step, as before I was just arguing online.

thank you very much for reading all that if you did! I'll upload some bitkarma to our account as a reward. :P

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Erosfire

Greets all

For the past 11 years of my life I've dedicated obsessive time to spiritual discovery. I began with christianity, but quickly shifted to taoism when I was given the dao de ching by a buddhist university student.

After daoism, when things got bad in my life after that peak in spirituality you get when it's fresh. I needed other things, so I started looking into certain aspects of demonolatry and had throughout my whole life been in communication with pagans from around the world, and in a very diverse town in England.

Exposed to most of the major concepts of the universe through childhood I managed to take all of them for granted. Later, buddhism struck me and wedged itself right in there, made full sense and required nothing from me (for any kind of divine consequence).

That is a very brief and undetailed description of the multitude of vivid lucid visualizations I had, many beliefs in many things - and entire worlds of gods in my mind. So strong that I could feel them before I was imagining them. All of them becoming quite unimportant in the end.

I was always interested in science and it's application to meditation and understanding of reality. Because spirituality for me is not a set of beliefs, it's the willingness to be sensetive. To life, to the miraculousness of what's happening and an observation of the real magic behind everything.

Science is the kid who's watching the magician and points out that he saw how he did it, he then explains it to everyone. Many people are fascinated, but most are outraged - they feel like the entire magic trick has been ruined.

However, I am here to say no it hasn't, watch again. This time knowing how he does it, and you see something you wonder at. Because somehow it works again, you don't quite see it... The magician alters the trick purposefully - this time with a greater result!

You can take that how you like, as a metaphor for a god - or just a metaphor for the experience of awe being increased by knowledge at the world you can see.

A scientific spirituality does not rely on deities, though they can be used to create a sense of relationship which is there, but not in a form we recognize as social animal behaviour... Like a mother or father, we do come from it. It is okay to look up, and see your origin in the heavens.

A scientific spirituality takes it's philosophy from both our ignorance of meaning, and our understanding of what we know. We can say 'I am reincarnated', because we may understand that 'I' is in each person who says it. Like two candle flames, it is the same process of energy transformation that has taken a beautiful flicker - and shares it's process with all others who flicker the same.

Death to science is one of the most ancient spiritual principles ever. The non-occuring. This is something which you can see everywhere. Life stops occuring in one place, but light the same candle it is or isn't the same flame, light a different candle - it is, or isn't the same flame.

Flame is the same as flame.

So we can say reincarnation, we can say that - that which occurs as I, occurs again. Elsewhere, Elsetime.

So I would ask you to consider Science, as the poetry of spiritual hunger. Mankind calling out to her universe, and her universe calling back. Some go to church to find reality, some go to the laboratory - to both it gifts. Like two poems of the same circumstance.

When I say that science is poetry, what I mean is that by allowing it to take on poetic power we can find the same spiritual power in it.

My current beliefs are ones where each day as I walk I know reality as it is, as much as I need to know it to proceed my meaning - which is to live entirely immersed in the world, pulling up those that I see falling. I consider this a good spiritual step, as before I was just arguing online.

thank you very much for reading all that if you did! I'll upload some bitkarma to our account as a reward. :P

Nice. Beautifully constructed and interesting to read. Nice.

[guthrio]

Originally Posted by Erosfire

Greets all

For the past 11 years of my life I've dedicated obsessive time to spiritual discovery. I began with christianity, but quickly shifted to taoism when I was given the dao de ching by a buddhist university student.

After daoism, when things got bad in my life after that peak in spirituality you get when it's fresh. I needed other things, so I started looking into certain aspects of demonolatry and had throughout my whole life been in communication with pagans from around the world, and in a very diverse town in England.

Exposed to most of the major concepts of the universe through childhood I managed to take all of them for granted. Later, buddhism struck me and wedged itself right in there, made full sense and required nothing from me (for any kind of divine consequence).

That is a very brief and undetailed description of the multitude of vivid lucid visualizations I had, many beliefs in many things - and entire worlds of gods in my mind. So strong that I could feel them before I was imagining them. All of them becoming quite unimportant in the end.

I was always interested in science and it's application to meditation and understanding of reality. Because spirituality for me is not a set of beliefs, it's the willingness to be sensetive. To life, to the miraculousness of what's happening and an observation of the real magic behind everything.

Science is the kid who's watching the magician and points out that he saw how he did it, he then explains it to everyone. Many people are fascinated, but most are outraged - they feel like the entire magic trick has been ruined.

However, I am here to say no it hasn't, watch again. This time knowing how he does it, and you see something you wonder at. Because somehow it works again, you don't quite see it... The magician alters the trick purposefully - this time with a greater result!

You can take that how you like, as a metaphor for a god - or just a metaphor for the experience of awe being increased by knowledge at the world you can see.

A scientific spirituality does not rely on deities, though they can be used to create a sense of relationship which is there, but not in a form we recognize as social animal behaviour... Like a mother or father, we do come from it. It is okay to look up, and see your origin in the heavens.

A scientific spirituality takes it's philosophy from both our ignorance of meaning, and our understanding of what we know. We can say 'I am reincarnated', because we may understand that 'I' is in each person who says it. Like two candle flames, it is the same process of energy transformation that has taken a beautiful flicker - and shares it's process with all others who flicker the same.

Death to science is one of the most ancient spiritual principles ever. The non-occuring. This is something which you can see everywhere. Life stops occuring in one place, but light the same candle it is or isn't the same flame, light a different candle - it is, or isn't the same flame.

Flame is the same as flame.

So we can say reincarnation, we can say that - that which occurs as I, occurs again. Elsewhere, Elsetime.

So I would ask you to consider Science, as the poetry of spiritual hunger. Mankind calling out to her universe, and her universe calling back. Some go to church to find reality, some go to the laboratory - to both it gifts. Like two poems of the same circumstance.

When I say that science is poetry, what I mean is that by allowing it to take on poetic power we can find the same spiritual power in it.

My current beliefs are ones where each day as I walk I know reality as it is, as much as I need to know it to proceed my meaning - which is to live entirely immersed in the world, pulling up those that I see falling. I consider this a good spiritual step, as before I was just arguing online.

thank you very much for reading all that if you did! I'll upload some bitkarma to our account as a reward. :P

Erosfire,

I very much resonate to what your words "Scientific Spirituality" invokes in me.

Over the years I, too, have had wrestling matches with myself concerning my beliefs. This is what I learned to do with them. I realized that if I wanted to KNOW the Truth, I had to consider that EXPERIENCING WHAT IS TRUE about Reality is the knowledge I needed.....not being sidetracked into finding a science to categorize it, or a philosophy to explain it, or a religion to save me.

Looking at the world through the "eyes" of Scientific Spirituality, I realized that the truth about the "reach" of our very understanding of REALITY is that each and every advancement has come about after we discovered what has ALWAYS BEEN TRUE, and waiting for us to discover it....our progress is based on SELF-DISCOVERY of what ALREADY IS....TRUE !!

...even when the tightly held ideas WE THOUGHT WERE TRUE were REALLY based on false information and dogma, WHICH virtually everyone believed, transmitted, and acted upon AS IF TRUE .....that is, until others, following their OWN ideas came along, who had quantifiable, repeatable, verifiable evidence based on a DIFFERENT set of ideas that turned the paradigm of established scientific or religious consensus on its head !!

Can there be any truer indictment of the history of mankind’s exploration and discovery of both scientific and religious Truth than to acknowledge that it is replete with examples of this or that scientist or religious prelate pontificating that this or that phenomena is impossible ???

The Principles of Life uncovered by scientists that govern the relationship between mass, gravity, time, and the curvature of space to produce black holes have been in perfect operation just as eternally before their discovery of those principles as is the frequency upon which you enjoy listening to your favorite music; indeed, existent ever since the Universe cooled it into resonance along with the infinite gradations of frequency radiating beside it. These principles HAD to have been in operation just as perfectly BEFORE we discovered how to harness them into technology as they presently operate now. Or we would not be able to continue to utilize them for our technology today, much less build them into technological improvements tomorrow!

The 6-volume set of books I've used as reference, below, changed my life and how I see EVERYTHING. I strongly believe they will have a similar effect on yours. You'll see why (especially by the time you get to page 21 of Vol 1) !

Once I understood what Baird Spalding meant in the reference below, that "Perfection does not come from projecting our own ideas but from awakening to the knowledge that it is already the established order of things." ,

...it was simply a matter of applying that perspective as Scientific Spirituality in the following manner (as also excerpted from the reference)
”Becoming aware of yourself as a spiritual being, offspring of an infinite spiritual system and one with all the powers and capacities within that system, is the very essence of attainment. To grow from the present state of awareness of himself as a material being and into the consciousness that he is a spiritual being contains the full secret of man's attainment.' Man's nature cannot be reversed for he always remains a spiritual being. He can only reverse his notion of himself. Instead of doing this, he should reverse his mistaken idea that he is a material being and retain the truth that he is a spiritual being created in the image and likeness of God."

I am glad that you have shared your own continuing journey of Scientific Spirituality with such eloquence.

Flame is the same as flame.

....and is the Truth that is eternally Truth shining as the Light which enlighteneth every Human Being Who has ever lived.

Flame on !

P.S. I can't help but respond in kind to your humorous "bitcoin deposit" reference to karma: "thank you very much for reading all that if you did! I'll upload some bitkarma to our account as a reward" ....with the following quote from Khalil Gibran, "A friend is your needs answered"...

....eternally rebalanced in the Book of Life.

Reference: Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East Volumes 1 - 6 by Baird T. Spalding

Reference: http://quotes.lifehack.org/quote/kha...eeds-answered/

[JaysonR]

Folks in here may want to look into neurotheology.
There is much of this timber in that field.

As a foot note, I also have the following which I have been compiling over time which is produced from the same general view point as the OP...
Terminological Analysis of Spiritual Interface Constituents

This is not the entire discussion regarding the subject, but it serves as a general terminological and abstract introduction to some of the basic concepts.