Understanding what we do not know?

[Sarian]

Originally Posted by Humm

I have seen this as well Sarian. There are many traps one can fall into along the path, and this is one of the most insidious, IMO.

I agree as they tend to do a great deal of damage. It's how cults get formed.

[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by Humm

Jyotir! Hello!

I was just thinking about you - glad to see you around again.

Hi Humm,
Good to be here.
Hope you, everyone is well.

~ J

[Lynn]

Originally Posted by Humm

Hi Lynn,

I was speaking of 'breakthrough' in the general sense, but yes I had to learn everything pretty much on my own. This was long before the internet, and as a child such things were not spoken of in our house. The only 'spiritual' resource I had was a book on witchcraft I ordered from the back of a comic, and the idea of AP was the only thing I retained from that.

OMG the Goosebump's comics lol....but I was never able to order things. YES no interent and no sites such as this the younger generation is much more blessed in some ways but too I would NOT give up that path I had. HMMM spiritual resouces for me growing up, the Bible that SO did not make a bit of sense to me as it said it was WRONG to leave the body and wrong to talk to the dead.

I read a ton as a child and more so as a teen. Mysteries, and Sci Fi, looking back quite fitting reading. I was 16 when I first heard the term Medium used, and then I would spend HOURs in the library reading in the "resource" section on all that history about how it was said to work. Was not like now where there are litterally millions of books on the topic.

How does it feel to learn? At first I was elated - awed! I talked to spirits, I AP'd. Pretty quickly however I figured out things weren't as I had assumed (that was part of the difficulty from the git-go!). Soon after that I truly felt that I was losing my mind. My old worldview had collapsed, and my new integrated worldview was only beginning to form. It is the transition that is painful - and the stronger one's previous worldview, the harder it falls.

OH I know that place of "I am mad in the head" I even got tested at 18 to make sure I was not going that way. I had then met me mate and while he the rebel of all rebels there was almost a knowing that while he would "P" the traditional parents right off there was something more there. That adventrue I sought to have. We were rather naughty he and I looking back, when he realized I did see "dead people" and I knew things about people NO ONE knew. This is where for some all of a sudden going from the wall flower at a party to the centre of attention can play the EGO up. I simply was too busy working and learning what addictiction issues were like. Having to grow up finally.

For me I simply finally was rude enough in Church that at 13 lol I got out of going. I was respectful always but too was always asking what was not to be asked. I played in it all....why having a basement bedroom lol and being a book worm nerd comes in handy. NO one suspected what I was up to, but looking back lol Dad did quesiton some of the "Smells" . Man if only they knew.... but to he does know.

Yes, it is all about surrender - and that is precisely why it is pitted straight against the ego.

As a child I was a dolt. In a very real way - no kidding - I had to learn to have ego. I had to have ego in order to transcend it, if that makes any sense - not that I've abolished it, obviously, but I use it, it doesn't use me.

...or at least that's how I look at it.

I posted a picture of ME and the Mate on Facebook of what we looked like at 18 and 19 when we met. LOL the response was OMG is that really you do with Lynn...or you look like your 9 year old daughter lol. The mate picked me he says as he saw what I could become. I even did things that shoked even him in life. Its great fun to do a hard core biker model shot when YOU have no interest in the bike.....and to have a friend of his bring it over and GO dam dude this is Lynn....I am sure of it. EYES it seems dont lie.

Its really all about that balance of power and powers that be, in keeping that EGO in check but too knowing its there when one needs it. Seeing the puzzle in the box without having the cover to go by.

Lynn

PS we should share "NERD" images here OMG High School 30 year reunion ( did not go but sent pictures in ) NO ONE knew me.

[Papa Bear]

Hi Gem;

Originally Posted by Gem

I'm sure the point is being overlooked. I think we're trying to go to the heights of some pure enlioghtened insight or something and pretending such a knowledge is understanding.

It is not where I am attempting to go, I am just opening up to the potential of what may be an understanding of what is not known. Insights of a Spiritual nature may or may not be pure enlightenment, but that is a definition only the individual who experiences that can decide. All I would say is that I do not refer to enlightenment when defining my own Spiritual references.

While the question of what Spiritual insight may be recognized as may be just as dependant on, the question of whether we think or feel there is a Spiritual to experience that exists, to be discovered in an insight. And that may be more to the point, rather than any interpretation of understanding it.

I uderstand how that elastes the philosopher... but when a person says 'I understand', they might convey that they comprahend some nature or quality of thing, or they might be expressing an understanding.

I agree that comprehending something can be mistaken for understanding and vice versa, especially where Spiritual understanding is concerned there is a fine line between those definitions. And that creates a good reason to have the discussion of the topic of the thread.

Now Niz can bang on and the enlightened ones can say 'yes', but to me, that does not demonstrate understanding.

I do not know who Niz is and do not associate to being an enlightened one so I have no response to that.

[Papa Bear]

Originally Posted by Lynn

Hello

People talk about having the "Spiritual Breakthrough" here again is something I so do not understand as I have never had such an experience. I have had awakenings but those are totally different I feel in nature of how they unfold.

If I am to understand a breakthough that is where the light bulb goes off and one goes OK I get it now. Being that I am what one's call someone that came in with that "Light Bulb" on ( now I do not mean that I am higher than another or know more ) I came in being able to do things other's have to learn. WHY is that simply that the past lives I had already did that work for me along the path.

I wonder what it is like to learn to communicate with spirits I wonder on what its like to learn to Astral Travel, I wonder what its like to be able to meditate solo and really make in that connection to that inner self. I alreay am thre in that I hear well that inner voice, I hear well spirits and me Guides. I wonder in what the frustrations of learning are like but I know well the role I have here. I am a "communicator" and in the native naming I had I was given the name "Spirit Whisperer" so I came in to do the work.

We can easily go WOW ! how cool would it to be another person but we can not do that we can have empathic feelings and we can try to see things through the eyes of another but we can not truly know them. We can attened work shoppe after work shoppe and never get what we seek to find there. Yet we still try. I feel that when we are finally ready to surrender to that inner being that soul level of us we finally get it we finally KNOW why we are here and whom we are but too we know that is not the end there is still more to experience and to know.

Looking at childhood, the memories are not great one's yet I had what was a good family life, teen year's were a nightmare but again I walked a clean path in life. I had many of the same stuggles one's do with the places of darkness those year's bring. I attempted something and I was given what some would call divine interventions to help me move from that. Was it not simply a part of life's learnings for the work I would come to do much later in life. To walk that path so I more understood that path in other's.

Playing in the very darkest of things but never doing it to other's and having an NDE even come from it, where I know well I was given that choice to change or next time that was "IT". I did not have to listen, and really looking back I wonder if I did listen or if just the physical injuries I had kept me from that path continuation. Maybe that too is a path of knowledge. Pain has a HUGE effect on one's paths.

Its easy to take the stage as I do and just talk on as I will Sunday communications with the other side and to bring in messages, but its not driven by that LOOK at me....its driven by that "WE are all the same" passions I know as we can on a basic level so all do it. I give back of me as I never asked for what I have, but I now embrace what I am.

I LOVe nothing more than one that is skeptical to what I present and find that I am not there to change their perspectives but I there to pass along what they need to hear in that moment of their lives. Often the skeptic will say to me I still do not beleive in ye....but I do thank ye for what was said as I needed that.

How we intergrate things most times is how we are willing to listen and connect to our inner being. At times admittedly that is a dark and lonely place to go so we run from it.

Lynn

Hi Lynn;
Awakenings are more subtle glimpses over time for most that experience them, though some have life changing insights. But Spiritual development is for most just that, a development of awakening to what`s been sleeping in the human consciousness. And even then each new challenge which surfaces may bring its own obstacles, for the conflict of human reasoning and Spiritual glimpses are a part of that development.

As you said Lynn;

Originally Posted by Lynn

How we intergrate things most times is how we are willing to listen and connect to our inner being. At times admittedly that is a dark and lonely place to go so we run from it.

That is true on both counts, as on the surface which we decide to reflect tends to come from which one any individual chooses.

I enjoy your openness and honesty Lynn it reflects your nature.

[Papa Bear]

Originally Posted by Nada

Spirituality is confirmation without verification.

Accepting your own spiritual experience without logical understanding is what spiritual awakening is all about.

Hi Nada, and only someone who has experienced such could reflect that. Thank you for your reflection.

[Papa Bear]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Hi Papa Bear,

Imv, 'understanding' denotes mental, rational, intellectual, and is objective in its essence;
whereas 'knowing' as in gnosis is deeper, fuller, more integral, also subjective.

In that sense, I guess it is possible to both 'know' what one does not 'understand', and also to understand what one does not know - depending on the focus of consciousness.

~ J

Hi Jyotir, that’s `awareness`. Thank you for sharing it.

[Papa Bear]

Originally Posted by Sarian

I've been trying to have this discussion with a friend...I pretty much get poo-pooed off. He is struggling with a faith he grew up with...and the bible. He used to preach it, but for example, he is listening to a bible scholar, once a christian, now an agnostic and there are some scriptures that totally contradict themselves on the same topic and he is blown away that he did not ever, ever notice this in all his preaching days... but besides that, he gets caught up on suffering and why god allows it. I have my own views, but none ever came from a book. I could be seriously deceived and titched in the head over my beliefs, but for whatever reason, they are there... Same with plenty of others. None come from books, they come from me...like I stated elsewhere, it's like an instinctual thing. Sometimes when I am reading something, there it is...and it's a grand moment when someone else is on the same page as I am, had that experience or 'knowing' if you will.

I'm probably way off base on what you are writing....but my friend gathers all his 'knowledge' from books and then more books. He listens to others and thinks about what is said, but he wants background, he wants to know they got their knowledge not just from an experience, or a thought or a belief that just came to them, but from a book ...but scholarly books, studied books. I can understand, but it's maddening too because what about people like me who have had these amazing and/or profound experiences...does it make me simply mad? Delusional? So it's difficult for me to have a discussion or debate with him because he laughs or cuts me off constantly. So what do people do in this situation? I believe it is possible and is possible and no doubt true that people have knowledge and/or understanding without really knowing. It had to come from someplace to start originally...and what really gives scholars the credibility...a paper?

There are many intellectual men and women who only know what they know by gathering information or dissecting it and coming to some conclusion without any true experience of their own. They are simply forming their own studies, hypothesis, experiments, their scientific methods...that's what I was thinking of, but couldn't remember what it was called...

I don't think there's a one size fits all in this area...it's individualized and personalized for each of us on this journey.

Hi Sarian, reading your words I could feel myself react with; I know that feeling over and over, and so I completely resonate with your reflection. I remember many years ago, while a developing spiritualist medium, after a year or so of `healing myself` I came across a book referring to chakra`s and I thought, I know them, without the name, I know their experience. And though my experiential knowledge remained my awareness, the universality of the term chakra, became a useful tool of abridgement in shared discussion.

I also reached; the author is just telling me what I already knew experience and the; so I am right verification, but in the end I became content enough with my own intuition as the authors became predictable. And it is that intuition in you, that I feel you have a flow with, trust it and be content when you discover external confirmations of knowing, for they often confirm that you understood before you knew. And as for sharing with others, well we are dependent on the recognition that to each is an individual path, as we enjoy the variation that creates. Thank you for your reflection.

Originally Posted by Papa Bear

Hi Sarian, reading your words I could feel myself react with; I know that feeling over and over, and so I completely resonate with your reflection. I remember many years ago, while a developing spiritualist medium, after a year or so of `healing myself` I came across a book referring to chakra`s and I thought, I know them, without the name, I know their experience. And though my experiential knowledge remained my awareness, the universality of the term chakra, became a useful tool of abridgement in shared discussion.

I also reached; the author is just telling me what I already knew experience and the; so I am right verification, but in the end I became content enough with my own intuition as the authors became predictable. And it is that intuition in you, that I feel you have a flow with, trust it and be content when you discover external confirmations of knowing, for they often confirm that you understood before you knew. And as for sharing with others, well we are dependent on the recognition that to each is an individual path, as we enjoy the variation that creates. Thank you for your reflection.

Absolutely.

For me, I realized that the manifestations are really all conceptual metaphors (reflections in consciousness) for the same thing. The perceived manifestations I experienced and read about in all the books may vary considerably, but they all point to the same thing.

This is how I came to distinguish what was spiritual.

Originally Posted by Lynn

PS we should share "NERD" images here OMG High School 30 year reunion ( did not go but sent pictures in ) NO ONE knew me.

LOL - I wouldn't want to frighten you.