HOW to PLAN SCIENTIFICALLY OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE to ATTAIN GODHOOD in 108 YEARS

Originally Posted by OPVerma

The goal is not achieved with haphazard endeavours and without establishing contact with GOD and NATURE.

Perhaps we should spend some time working out the reasons we are separate from them, because if we need to establish contact with God and nature - and ourselves - then something has gone badly wrong. Spirituality is what separates us from ourselves, each other and All That Is because our beliefs about the theologies and ideologies are more important than the 'practicalities'.


"God made man, man made religion."
Anon

[Altair]

ON EARTH WE ARE PROVIDED about 300 -400 lifetimes to acquire 26 virtues and shed 13 malices to get purified and go out of the MATERIAL UNIVERSE. Those who fail to do so their souls get annihilated when the universe expires and they meet the final death.

I disagree and I would say there are near limitless possibilities here. Some may incarnate a billion times or more, and many may never get ''enlightened'' (whatever it means to you..). Reducing it to ''300-400 lifetimes'' is, to me at least, as comical as saying you live once and then go to heaven or hell. Actually, you believe in annihilation, you just expand the number of life times. You reduce spirituality and the universe to something orderly and very structured and I think that's folly.

[shankara]

Originally Posted by Altair

I disagree and I would say there are near limitless possibilities here. Some may incarnate a billion times or more, and many may never get ''enlightened'' (whatever it means to you..). Reducing it to ''300-400 lifetimes'' is, to me at least, as comical as saying you live once and then go to heaven or hell. Actually, you believe in annihilation, you just expand the number of life times. You reduce spirituality and the universe to something orderly and very structured and I think that's folly.

I had exactly the same thought. I think that there is a kind of hell realm where ego is dissolved to allow the essence to return and make further human incarnations. After, funnily enough, 108 lives, which is apparently the secret meaning of the mala. But this hell isn't a permanent state.

Originally Posted by Altair

I disagree and I would say there are near limitless possibilities here. Some may incarnate a billion times or more, and many may never get ''enlightened'' (whatever it means to you..). Reducing it to ''300-400 lifetimes'' is, to me at least, as comical as saying you live once and then go to heaven or hell. Actually, you believe in annihilation, you just expand the number of life times. You reduce spirituality and the universe to something orderly and very structured and I think that's folly.

Where do you get the numbers from?


The number of Lifetimes has to do with the choices the Soul/Spirit makes and there's no set number. I'm on my seventh and so is Mrs G, and a couple more on this forum have said that this is their last of often less than ten. Interestingly, none of them would call themselves Spiritually Enlightened. If you want to Live for billions of Lifetimes then as Spirit you can make that choice, if I want to Live for seven and go Home I have that choice too. If the choice is not within my power to make then in whose power is it and where does that mean to Free Will?

Originally Posted by shankara

I had exactly the same thought. I think that there is a kind of hell realm where ego is dissolved to allow the essence to return and make further human incarnations. After, funnily enough, 108 lives, which is apparently the secret meaning of the mala. But this hell isn't a permanent state.

The ego gives you a point of reference if you like, it's the centre for your 'sphere of consciousness' if you like and is where Sacred Geometry's Vesica Pisces and the Buddhist Egg of Life and Tree of Life come from. Without the ego you would have no point of reference, it would be like space-walking where you can't tell which way is up or down, left or right, above and below....... No higher realms and no lower realm, no high vibes and no low vibes...... No "I am Spiritual" and no "I am in need of a pee." Oops.

[shankara]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

The ego gives you a point of reference if you like, it's the centre for your 'sphere of consciousness' if you like and is where Sacred Geometry's Vesica Pisces and the Buddhist Egg of Life and Tree of Life come from. Without the ego you would have no point of reference, it would be like space-walking where you can't tell which way is up or down, left or right, above and below....... No higher realms and no lower realm, no high vibes and no low vibes...... No "I am Spiritual" and no "I am in need of a pee." Oops.

Yeah I'm not referring to the ego in the sense of the "I AM", I don't think not having ego would be like the experience of ego death one can get from some hallucinogens. There is the Being, which is not "Self" but has Individuality, I believe. In my tradition we follow the Gurdjieff notion about multiple egos each taking control of the human machine for a moment then being succeeded by another. Hence we are supposed to practise Self-Observation.

Another teacher speaks about humanity as being not yet truly human, rather we are "the intellectual animal". When we free ourselves from the (animal) egos, we come to incarnate the Being, which is to be truly Human.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Where do you get the numbers from?

I wonder about that too..
Ask OPVerma, I was quoting him.

Originally Posted by shankara

Yeah I'm not referring to the ego in the sense of the "I AM", I don't think not having ego would be like the experience of ego death one can get from some hallucinogens. There is the Being, which is not "Self" but has Individuality, I believe. In my tradition we follow the Gurdjieff notion about multiple egos each taking control of the human machine for a moment then being succeeded by another. Hence we are supposed to practise Self-Observation.

Another teacher speaks about humanity as being not yet truly human, rather we are "the intellectual animal". When we free ourselves from the (animal) egos, we come to incarnate the Being, which is to be truly Human.

The trouble with Spirituality is that it borrows phrases from science and redefines it for its own purposes, add in a touch of agenda and everything gets silly. I'd rather turn to Jung or Freud when it comes to ego because at least it makes sense. Very often people don't talk about the ego itself but what's in the ego - and ego-death is in the ego, as is being Spiritual. When it comes to Self/self, Being/being it gets very messy.


90% of our DNA is similar to that of apes and most of our decisions are processed by the limbic system, which is falsely referred to as the lizard brain but it;s an apt description. And like the hominids we're still afraid of the dark as any light versus dark thread will tell you. Is "truly human" the other side of the fence where the grass is always greener, a truly human thing?

[shankara]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

The trouble with Spirituality is that it borrows phrases from science and redefines it for its own purposes, add in a touch of agenda and everything gets silly. I'd rather turn to Jung or Freud when it comes to ego because at least it makes sense. Very often people don't talk about the ego itself but what's in the ego - and ego-death is in the ego, as is being Spiritual. When it comes to Self/self, Being/being it gets very messy.


90% of our DNA is similar to that of apes and most of our decisions are processed by the limbic system, which is falsely referred to as the lizard brain but it;s an apt description. And like the hominids we're still afraid of the dark as any light versus dark thread will tell you. Is "truly human" the other side of the fence where the grass is always greener, a truly human thing?

I think that spiritual writers just tend to use the term EGO in a different sense than in the psychoanalytic tradition. I don't think they're referring so much to the unified conscious part of consciousness so much as to selfish desires.

Originally Posted by shankara

I think that spiritual writers just tend to use the term EGO in a different sense than in the psychoanalytic tradition. I don't think they're referring so much to the unified conscious part of consciousness so much as to selfish desires.

Well now, there's the thing. When you understand Jung's model of the ego and what they ancients mystics call Maya or the false/programmed self they're the same thing. Clinically if you lost your ego you'd end up having to be spoon fed because you're so far gone. Interestingly that's what happens with the achievement of Samadhi or dissolution of the false self. Selfish desires are also within Maya as they are within ego.

I think that the spiritual translators not the writers have/had a poor understanding of the real meaning of the words they were using. The writers would have been using something other than English and certainly Sanskrit.