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  #1  
Old 20-06-2016, 04:40 PM
truthseeker1111 truthseeker1111 is offline
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How to search for truth when there are *so many* belief systems

Hi all!

Thank you all for making this forum, where we could ask such questions!

I was raised religious, but came to realize in adolescence that other children are raised in other faiths / belief systems , and the fact that I was handed down my tradition doesn't automatically mean it's true.

So I want to know which religion / belief system / world-view is true, if any. My natural instinct is to look into the various belief systems in the world. But Wikipedia tells me there are more than 4,000 religions in the world! And I'm guessing that doesn't necessarily include the non-theistic belief systems.

Just to clarify what I mean by "true"... I think that all world-views have truth in them - eg all religions properly practiced can give a person peace and harmony with others and happiness. But which one or ones, if any, are historically and ontologically correct. Which one is not just a bunch of myths, but is historically factual, and (even more importantly) which one(s)' portrayal of reality is commensurate with the way reality really is?

To go through the more than 4000 systems seems very daunting, and yet, how else?

So my question is - how to approach all this, and how to proceed?

(and if ultimately the truth is inaccessible to me, I'd like to at least get the best understanding of reality that I can).

Thanks!
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  #2  
Old 20-06-2016, 09:34 PM
Within Silence Within Silence is offline
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How could truth be inaccessible to you? <Why did you think this?
Is there a limitation to truth?
Is truth partial and discriminatory?
What exactly is truth, is it dead and stagnant?
Perhaps we ask, what isn't truth?

A few quotes from J. Krishnamurti:

You have to question everything

I do not demand your faith; I am not setting myself up as an authority. I have nothing to teach you- no new philosophy, no new system, no new path to reality; there is no path to reality any more than to truth. All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.

Truth has no path

We have been told that all paths lead to truth. You have a path as a Hindu and someone else has a path as a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door- which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living.

I cannot lead you to truth

To find out what this life is all about, to know the whole content of it and not just the superficial layers which we call living, to be aware of its joy, its extraordinary depths, its width and beauty, which includes the squalor, the misery, the strife, the degradation -to understand the significance of all that, your mind must obviously be free. If that is clearly understood, then your relationship with me, and my relationship with you, is not based on authority. I cannot lead you to truth, nor can anyone else; you have to discover it every moment of the day as you are living. It is to be found when you are walking in the street or riding in a tramcar, when you are quarreling with your wife or husband, when you are sitting alone or looking at the stars. When you know what is right meditation, then you will find out what is true; but a mind that is prepared, so-called educated, that is conditioned to believe or not to believe, that calls itself a Hindu, a Christian, a communist, a Buddhist -such a mind will never discover what is true, though it may search for a thousand years. So, the important thing is for the mind to be free. And, can the mind ever be free?
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  #3  
Old 21-06-2016, 11:34 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by truthseeker1111
Hi all!

Thank you all for making this forum, where we could ask such questions!

I was raised religious, but came to realize in adolescence that other children are raised in other faiths / belief systems , and the fact that I was handed down my tradition doesn't automatically mean it's true.

So I want to know which religion / belief system / world-view is true, if any. My natural instinct is to look into the various belief systems in the world. But Wikipedia tells me there are more than 4,000 religions in the world! And I'm guessing that doesn't necessarily include the non-theistic belief systems.

Just to clarify what I mean by "true"... I think that all world-views have truth in them - eg all religions properly practiced can give a person peace and harmony with others and happiness. But which one or ones, if any, are historically and ontologically correct. Which one is not just a bunch of myths, but is historically factual, and (even more importantly) which one(s)' portrayal of reality is commensurate with the way reality really is?

To go through the more than 4000 systems seems very daunting, and yet, how else?

So my question is - how to approach all this, and how to proceed?

(and if ultimately the truth is inaccessible to me, I'd like to at least get the best understanding of reality that I can).

Thanks!
It's all up to you, what you feel and what you believe in. You may not really know what, but try asking your heart and not your mind - it will tell you.

There is only one reality existing outside of all cognitive facets and perceptions of its omnipresent existence and many people/religions will have different names for it.

I follow a very ancient religion that doesn't even exist anymore but in a diluted, watered down form which bears no similarity to the initial form.

If I were to even go about trying to explain my religion, it would be like:

Hinduism/Shamanism/Zen/Spiritualism/Wicca/Mast Sufism...Yeah, I'm the only one on the whole planet basically...gets lonely at times...dealing with it......
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  #4  
Old 02-07-2016, 06:22 AM
shivatar shivatar is offline
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Seek the guru, revere the guru.

Hinduism. Buddhism. Christianity. All solid choices I can recommeond personally as a path to truth, and again seek a teacher/preacher/guru within each religion immediately.

The only people who don't seek guru's are arrogant beginners, and people who are destined to reach highest levels of spirituality by divine favor, not through the grace of a teacher. That is how important teacher is, only fools and gods do not seek a teacher. (and as a God, I seek teachers, so what does that tell you!)
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  #5  
Old 02-07-2016, 06:31 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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However, many may spend their whole lives or many lifetimes looking for the 'right guru' without ever having the skills to recognise which guru is 'right' for them. They waste precious self-development time.

If I went out looking for a guru...I mean, there are so many self-proclaimed ones out there and so many followers of such all blind with adoration...all willing to personally testify by some personal, anecdotal account that 'he's the ONE'....

I don't think I will ever be able to have a guru and it's not due to arrogance, but because I have too many expectations about what a guru either is or should be. However, my role model is Shiva who taught the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra to Parvati, so yeah, those standards get set quite high.

However, if another living soul ever came onto this planet who knew me inside-out without me having to even say a word, I'll sit up and take notice. There has only ever been one.
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  #6  
Old 04-07-2016, 11:55 PM
shivatar shivatar is offline
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The more reasons you give for choosing not to seek guru, the more time you waste. Guru says things that are painful, and seeking truth through guru is painful, lots of mistakes along the way. There is no easy way, no short path, so stop putting barriers up, realize it's going to be inifinitely difficult and infinitely rewarding, and just do it.

Check it like this. Subdue your self and expectations, find a guru now, or suffer another death, or many more deaths, before finding peace and enlightenment. "Just do it" is all I can tell you, it's not easy, and your mind will resist you 100% of the way. Just part of life and the path.

I am Shiva lol, Shivatar - avatar of Shiva, Shiva avatar. And unfortunately as an incarnated form I can do nothing for you immediately, but there are teachers around you, many other incarnations of me, who are willing to guide you until I have achieved what I came here to do.
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  #7  
Old 05-07-2016, 12:09 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by shivatar
The more reasons you give for choosing not to seek guru, the more time you waste. Guru says things that are painful, and seeking truth through guru is painful, lots of mistakes along the way. There is no easy way, no short path, so stop putting barriers up, realize it's going to be inifinitely difficult and infinitely rewarding, and just do it.

Check it like this. Subdue your self and expectations, find a guru now, or suffer another death, or many more deaths, before finding peace and enlightenment. "Just do it" is all I can tell you, it's not easy, and your mind will resist you 100% of the way. Just part of life and the path.

I am Shiva lol, Shivatar - avatar of Shiva, Shiva avatar. And unfortunately as an incarnated form I can do nothing for you immediately, but there are teachers around you, many other incarnations of me, who are willing to guide you until I have achieved what I came here to do.
Yet, you also said that my whole problems stemmed from believing I was Shiva, when nothing could be further away from that:

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/sh...67&postcount=7

Yet here you are, saying that you are Shiva and you're telling me I need a Guru.

Guess what? If I don't get to be Shiva, neither do you.

If you believe I am going to go through countless lifetimes until I find a Guru, you can believe that. I won't remember any of it anyway, so why should I care?

In light of the Ultimate Truth or Ultimate Reality, everything, EVERYTHING is subjectively illusory to the individual person.

EVERYTHING is perspective based. EVERYTHING only matters to each person and each individual consciousness....it's all bull!

Because everything is illusion or Maya, I get to do whatever the hell I want because I know it's not going to make a scrap of difference to what IS.

I even get to say 'The only thing that is 'real' to me is whatever I think, feel, believe in'...that's as real as anything else out there...Santa Claus is just as real as anything else out there....get it?
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  #8  
Old 05-07-2016, 02:42 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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mmmmokay, let's try this...

Oi, Shiva - Why you make me born totally autistic, schizotypal and insane?

Why you make it impossible for me to communicate my feelings to anybody else except for you?

Why you make everybody either terrified of me or make them think I am a lunatic? Why you make people ignore me, disregard me and treat me like dung since birth?

Why you make me born without any social skills whatsoever? why you make me born non-human? why do you take away the source of anything and everything I ever managed to get close to or love, until all that was left was you alone?

Why give me birth into this world, yet not make me a part of it, ever?

Why waste my time with sending such people to me who don't even know or understand me? why give me a genius IQ and why can I see and hear things that everybody else cannot? Why do this to me, Shiva, why?

Why fill my head and heart full of 'everything Hindu' since the Agamas and introduce me to the Aghori and the Trika, why? Why is it the only people who could have possibly understood Necro died thousands of years ago...why Shiva, why?

What did I ever do to deserve being instilled with the 'wisdom of ages'? Why dump my head full of so much knowledge, but leave me anti-social to the max, why?

Why do you tell me that I have to look for a Guru, when I live in outback, Australia, I'm poor and can't afford to travel and I'm not a big fan of 'youtube Gurus'? We tried Swami Nithyananda until a huge sex scandal broke out, then he got arrested and put in jail...we tried that one, didn't we? another young-gun hyped up on testosterone, thinking he was Shiva...

If you are really Shiva, you'd know me, you'd know all this and you'd know why I can't look for a guru. If it's only the issue of surrendering the ego/will to a force greater and outside oneself, I have already done that and Shiva knows that.

He's just laughing about the whole thing right now though.
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I am the creator of my own reality, so please don't get offended if I refuse to allow you to be the creator of it instead of focusing on creating your own. Thanks.
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  #9  
Old 05-07-2016, 05:52 AM
lancing lancing is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Necromancer
mmmmokay, let's try this...

Oi, Shiva - Why you make me born totally autistic, schizotypal and insane?

Why you make it impossible for me to communicate my feelings to anybody else except for you?

Why you make everybody either terrified of me or make them think I am a lunatic? Why you make people ignore me, disregard me and treat me like dung since birth?

Why you make me born without any social skills whatsoever? why you make me born non-human? why do you take away the source of anything and everything I ever managed to get close to or love, until all that was left was you alone?

Why give me birth into this world, yet not make me a part of it, ever?

Why waste my time with sending such people to me who don't even know or understand me? why give me a genius IQ and why can I see and hear things that everybody else cannot? Why do this to me, Shiva, why?

Why fill my head and heart full of 'everything Hindu' since the Agamas and introduce me to the Aghori and the Trika, why? Why is it the only people who could have possibly understood Necro died thousands of years ago...why Shiva, why?

What did I ever do to deserve being instilled with the 'wisdom of ages'? Why dump my head full of so much knowledge, but leave me anti-social to the max, why?

Why do you tell me that I have to look for a Guru, when I live in outback, Australia, I'm poor and can't afford to travel and I'm not a big fan of 'youtube Gurus'? We tried Swami Nithyananda until a huge sex scandal broke out, then he got arrested and put in jail...we tried that one, didn't we? another young-gun hyped up on testosterone, thinking he was Shiva...

If you are really Shiva, you'd know me, you'd know all this and you'd know why I can't look for a guru. If it's only the issue of surrendering the ego/will to a force greater and outside oneself, I have already done that and Shiva knows that.

He's just laughing about the whole thing right now though.

Oh, if only the argument were worth the effort put into the argument. Do you know what they say about silence? Perhaps what they say about ignorance? Well...I don't!
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  #10  
Old 05-07-2016, 06:05 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lancing
Oh, if only the argument were worth the effort put into the argument. Do you know what they say about silence? Perhaps what they say about ignorance? Well...I don't!
I think it comes from exactly the same place as what they say about humility.

I'm just at the end of it all now and I have even been thinking about exploring selective muteness as an option. If I act dumb and can convince people of it, maybe they'll make the effort to try and communicate with me through other means? I'll have to pretend to be totally illiterate as well for this to work.....

They'll end up feeling so sorry for me, they'll try and communicate in any way possible...it's worth a try anyway.

Maybe if I really become fully immersed in my own little universe without even making any attempt to try and communicate, it may make others curious? maybe...

Then again, I'm crazy and I don't know what I'm talking about anyway.
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