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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Spiritual Development

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  #21  
Old 13-02-2019, 10:52 AM
ocean breeze ocean breeze is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne

Personally, when I went through my spiritual awakening, I had to give up most of my friends, my job, my life, my apartment and eventually even the country I was living in.

Were they yours to begin with?
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  #22  
Old 13-02-2019, 12:13 PM
NoOne NoOne is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocean breeze
Were they yours to begin with?

Well yes, that is a good point. We tend to think that we own certain things or that certain people are "ours". That is all an illusion of course.
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  #23  
Old 13-02-2019, 04:59 PM
Unseeking Seeker Unseeking Seeker is offline
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***

Perhaps it is about striking a balance between the internal and external, attaining a centred equilibrium. Extreme positions may initially be untenable but if the fulcrum of consciousness is internal, for that is where we connect to the eternal, we may continue to zestfully engage as an observational non-doer in the earth life engagements as ordained.

In my view all facilitations are bestowed upon us by the Universe if our free will so chooses by taking small steps in actual consciousness correction by transformation in thought word and deed. As and when we cross the challenges posed our ascension continues unendingly after assimilation and stabilisation.

***
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  #24  
Old 14-02-2019, 12:55 AM
ocean breeze ocean breeze is offline
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To answer my own question. In the name of spiritual development, the only thing i see developing is a more inflated ego, and a greater sense of pride. Necessarily so. Unfortunately ego and pride get a bad rep.
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  #25  
Old 14-02-2019, 01:40 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
Speaking from experience here, true spirituality is hard. Very hard. It takes a lot of sacrifice. You have to be ready to give up everything and I do mean everything. There are no shortcuts either, despite what many claim. It takes decades (and not years or months) of work, meditation and study to get anywhere on the spiritual path.

Personally, when I went through my spiritual awakening, I had to give up most of my friends, my job, my life, my apartment and eventually even the country I was living in. When people talk about a spiritual rebirth, that's really what they mean. You are like a newborn baby, helpless and having to start a new life all over again. Frankly, most people aren't ready to do that.

A spiritual awakening (particularly if Kundalini is activated) is also a risky proposition. Not everyone makes it. Some end up dead or insane. Personally I got away by the skin of my teeth and only because I had a higher power helping me. The Love and Light brigade as well as the army of fraudsters who tell people what they want to hear, does not prepare you for the reality of the situation and what sacrifices have to be made and risks taken. This is no joke and I'm not surprised most people turn back at the first sign of trouble.
That is very true!

What I am about to say, is going to sound insanely simplistic (for a change), but it is the only way I can understand and relate to ANY of this on my own terms. It is what makes the most "sense" to me (even if it doesn't for others).

I am reminded about the story of Job.
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section11/

Throughout every culture and tradition in this world, there are stories about "chosen ones" being "tested" in some way. There exists some kind of necessary qualifications or "worthiness" or how much a person is prepared to give up and suffer "in God's name" before being handed the keys to the "Kingdom of Heaven". God can see the potential for Moksha (liberation) in some, but He doesn't know how it is all going to end...This is why He created Human Beings and gave us Free Will...It is all a huge sadistic game to Him because He is totally bored of eternal Self-Glorification.

Some humans He obviously favours more than others and those are the ones who get "tested" the worst and those who think/believe "a loving God would NEVER do this" are usually the very first who will drop out and turn away, because they had the totally wrong/false idea about God or spirituality in the FIRST place, and when they realise that actuality does, in no way equate with flowery idealism, they just cut their losses and move on...but the whole crux of the matter is that they just refuse to be "tested" anymore for a belief...So better not to have the belief and then maybe God will see that He is just wasting His time with them and give up.
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  #26  
Old 14-02-2019, 08:58 AM
NoOne NoOne is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shivani Devi
That is very true!

What I am about to say, is going to sound insanely simplistic (for a change), but it is the only way I can understand and relate to ANY of this on my own terms. It is what makes the most "sense" to me (even if it doesn't for others).

I am reminded about the story of Job.
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section11/

Throughout every culture and tradition in this world, there are stories about "chosen ones" being "tested" in some way. There exists some kind of necessary qualifications or "worthiness" or how much a person is prepared to give up and suffer "in God's name" before being handed the keys to the "Kingdom of Heaven". God can see the potential for Moksha (liberation) in some, but He doesn't know how it is all going to end...This is why He created Human Beings and gave us Free Will...It is all a huge sadistic game to Him because He is totally bored of eternal Self-Glorification.

I am not a Jew or a Christian, but the Biblical view of humans having to sacrifice everything in their lives for a higher purpose does seem to be accurate. I take Gopi Krishna’s view here, in that Spiritual awakening, especially as it relates to Kundalini, is an evolutionary mechanism. It is meant to create a new, „enlightened” species so to speak, that is connected to a higher power on a constant basis and through its connection to Heaven and the constant stream of Soma that enters the body after an awakening, it transforms the human into a higher life form, slowly, over a lifetime. All evolutionary leaps involve sacrifice and suffering. Even childbirth is painful, for both the mother and the baby, even traumatic actually. It is naive in the extreme to expect to take a huge evolutionary leap without making some major sacrifices on the way. That is why New Age has never resonated with me. It is fake as Hell.

However I don’t think this is a sadistic game by „God”, unless of course you believe that the Biblical God is the Demiurge. In that context, it would certainly make sense.

The Higher beings I’m in contact with all want humanity to rise up from the mud, so to speak. They want us to become like them, multi-dimensional light beings. That transformation just isn’t possible without pain, sacrifice and suffering, but I do find that they moderate these to make them just about bearable for everyone, based on your own pain threshold. I suffered a lot, but it never affected me at my core, because I knew it was necessary and that the pain was worth it in the end. You could say I was indifferent to my own suffering and saw it as an outside observer, from the point of view of the Wisdom of my higher Self. My Ego whined about it all the time of course, but I learnt to ignore the squeaky little voice that is never happy with anything and just complains and whines all the time. You just have to tune it out.

Quote:
„ Some humans He obviously favours more than others and those are the ones who get "tested" the worst and those who think/believe "a loving God would NEVER do this" are usually the very first who will drop out and turn away, because they had the totally wrong/false idea about God or spirituality in the FIRST place, and when they realise that actuality does, in no way equate with flowery idealism, they just cut their losses and move on...but the whole crux of the matter is that they just refuse to be "tested" anymore for a belief...So better not to have the belief and then maybe God will see that He is just wasting His time with them and give up.”

That is a very Judeo-Christian idea and maybe it’s true, who knows. There are some similar ideas in Hinduism, in terms of the value of personal sacrifice. Buddhists however see suffering as unnecessary and the very objectice of their philosophy is to remove it. This mellower approach appeals to me, personally.
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  #27  
Old 14-02-2019, 09:28 AM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
I am not a Jew or a Christian, but the Biblical view of humans having to sacrifice everything in their lives for a higher purpose does seem to be accurate. I take Gopi Krishna’s view here, in that Spiritual awakening, especially as it relates to Kundalini, is an evolutionary mechanism. It is meant to create a new, „enlightened” species so to speak, that is connected to a higher power on a constant basis and through its connection to Heaven and the constant stream of Soma that enters the body after an awakening, it transforms the human into a higher life form, slowly, over a lifetime. All evolutionary leaps involve sacrifice and suffering. Even childbirth is painful, for both the mother and the baby, even traumatic actually. It is naive in the extreme to expect to take a huge evolutionary leap without making some major sacrifices on the way. That is why New Age has never resonated with me. It is fake as Hell.

However I don’t think this is a sadistic game by „God”, unless of course you believe that the Biblical God is the Demiurge. In that context, it would certainly make sense.

The Higher beings I’m in contact with all want humanity to rise up from the mud, so to speak. They want us to become like them, multi-dimensional light beings. That transformation just isn’t possible without pain, sacrifice and suffering, but I do find that they moderate these to make them just about bearable for everyone, based on your own pain threshold. I suffered a lot, but it never affected me at my core, because I knew it was necessary and that the pain was worth it in the end. You could say I was indifferent to my own suffering and saw it as an outside observer, from the point of view of the Wisdom of my higher Self. My Ego whined about it all the time of course, but I learnt to ignore the squeaky little voice that is never happy with anything and just complains and whines all the time. You just have to tune it out.



That is a very Judeo-Christian idea and maybe it’s true, who knows. There are some similar ideas in Hinduism, in terms of the value of personal sacrifice. Buddhists however see suffering as unnecessary and the very objectice of their philosophy is to remove it. This mellower approach appeals to me, personally.
Of course.

Being born and raised into a Christian society still has its many subconscious indoctrination biases, despite the fact that this "package" has an alternate religious affiliation label which is also non commensurate with a transcendental consciousness.

When we discuss "New Age" or "Spirituality", these are also Westernised concepts of Eastern traditions, which must compete/interact with the "base values" of Western society, which is STILL Abrahamic or Judaic...and so, "consciousness" must have the term "Christ" attached to it (Christ Consciousness) to make it a distinct entity and variety from the "Consciousness" that has been described by Hinduism or Buddhism...It is all just a "label" to make people feel better in their attempts to incorporate that into Christianity from a one-sided perspective (because we both know that fundamental Christianity isn't going to have a bar of it either).

Personally..very personally, I believe that God IS the Demiurge and this either comes from Jahweh destroying the world by flood and/or me worshiping God in His destructive aspect as Lord Shiva...This does not mean that I believe that God does not love or is not compassionate...On the contrary, I believe that it is because of His love and compassion that He DOES this, but others who are directly affected by it are too emotionally invested to see it that way....thus He plays with us in the same way as we would play with a character in The Sims... it's just that our "expansion packs" keep changing. It really is a stretch to believe that we are autonomous in any way..

This is just MY personal view though and it may be right/wrong, who cares? All I know is that it is no more right/wrong than anybody else's viewpoint.
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  #28  
Old 14-02-2019, 03:58 PM
NoOne NoOne is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shivani Devi
Of course.

Being born and raised into a Christian society still has its many subconscious indoctrination biases, despite the fact that this "package" has an alternate religious affiliation label which is also non commensurate with a transcendental consciousness.

When we discuss "New Age" or "Spirituality", these are also Westernised concepts of Eastern traditions, which must compete/interact with the "base values" of Western society, which is STILL Abrahamic or Judaic...and so, "consciousness" must have the term "Christ" attached to it (Christ Consciousness) to make it a distinct entity and variety from the "Consciousness" that has been described by Hinduism or Buddhism...It is all just a "label" to make people feel better in their attempts to incorporate that into Christianity from a one-sided perspective (because we both know that fundamental Christianity isn't going to have a bar of it either).

Personally..very personally, I believe that God IS the Demiurge and this either comes from Jahweh destroying the world by flood and/or me worshiping God in His destructive aspect as Lord Shiva...This does not mean that I believe that God does not love or is not compassionate...On the contrary, I believe that it is because of His love and compassion that He DOES this, but others who are directly affected by it are too emotionally invested to see it that way....thus He plays with us in the same way as we would play with a character in The Sims... it's just that our "expansion packs" keep changing. It really is a stretch to believe that we are autonomous in any way..

This is just MY personal view though and it may be right/wrong, who cares? All I know is that it is no more right/wrong than anybody else's viewpoint.

All we can have is a personal view, I’m afraid. There are too many contradictions and competing viewpoints to come to any solid conclusion intellectually about what’s going on. I tend to follow my intuition these days, which gives me co certainties, but at least I do have some suspicions on the nature of reality and what mighty actually be going on. Nothing that’s empirically provable though. My own viewpoints are in constant flux and evolution, but here’s where I stand right now.

- There is a demiurge and he may be one of the gods of the Bible, but there seems to be several at least. I do not think that Shiva is it, I believe he is outside the created material universe and his role as destructor is precisely to end the fake reality and the suffering that comes with it. In the Hindu trinity, Vishnu and Brahma both look like more likely candidates for the Demiurge. Among the Devas, Indra is actually the closest equivalent to the Storm/Sky gods Zeus / Yahweh.

- Zecharia Sitchin’s idea that there are two main gods in the Bible, based on Enki and Enlil is very intriquing, I think. He equates Enki with the good God, who constantly tried to save humanity (from the flood, for instance) and Enlil with the Jealous, Angry god who tried to destroy humanity. The flood story is based on the Gilgamesh epic, where Enlil tries to destroy humanity (which has been created as a slave race) as they have grown too numerous and are now disturbing his sleep. It is Enki who steps in and saves at least some of humanity and the seeds and domesticated animals that are needed to restart civilisation after the flood.

- Shiva is probably the Equivalent of Enki. There are a lot of similarities between them that makes me think that, but if you do a bit of research, it becomes fairly obvious.
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  #29  
Old 14-02-2019, 04:30 PM
explorer007 explorer007 is offline
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hi, i was just watching some more of those testimonies to see if i could try see what happened, it seems most were drawn to it around 2011 where is was very popular on facebook in the groups, lots of promises being made and high hopes and all that. i noticed from the videos, they talk about gradually becoming isolated and friendless and losing their job and their motivation and then depression with aniexy then bang they are saved and all happy when go over to christian path. it's quite hard to believe but its happened and happening to many people. i think speaking from a new age point of veiw its the struggle of trying to stay high happy while trying to blend in with the earthly world and this must cause all those symptoms they report in the videos. im just trying to keep an open mind here. apparently from a christian point of veiw it's a new age trap but i find that very disrespectful to say to your spirit guides and all other new age people yeah.
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  #30  
Old 14-02-2019, 07:43 PM
7luminaries 7luminaries is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NoOne
I am not a Jew or a Christian, but the Biblical view of humans having to sacrifice everything in their lives for a higher purpose does seem to be accurate. I take Gopi Krishna’s view here, in that Spiritual awakening, especially as it relates to Kundalini, is an evolutionary mechanism. It is meant to create a new, „enlightened” species so to speak, that is connected to a higher power on a constant basis and through its connection to Heaven and the constant stream of Soma that enters the body after an awakening, it transforms the human into a higher life form, slowly, over a lifetime. All evolutionary leaps involve sacrifice and suffering. Even childbirth is painful, for both the mother and the baby, even traumatic actually. It is naive in the extreme to expect to take a huge evolutionary leap without making some major sacrifices on the way. That is why New Age has never resonated with me. It is fake as Hell.

However I don’t think this is a sadistic game by „God”, unless of course you believe that the Biblical God is the Demiurge. In that context, it would certainly make sense.

The Higher beings I’m in contact with all want humanity to rise up from the mud, so to speak. They want us to become like them, multi-dimensional light beings. That transformation just isn’t possible without pain, sacrifice and suffering, but I do find that they moderate these to make them just about bearable for everyone, based on your own pain threshold. I suffered a lot, but it never affected me at my core, because I knew it was necessary and that the pain was worth it in the end. You could say I was indifferent to my own suffering and saw it as an outside observer, from the point of view of the Wisdom of my higher Self. My Ego whined about it all the time of course, but I learnt to ignore the squeaky little voice that is never happy with anything and just complains and whines all the time. You just have to tune it out.

That is a very Judeo-Christian idea and maybe it’s true, who knows. There are some similar ideas in Hinduism, in terms of the value of personal sacrifice. Buddhists however see suffering as unnecessary and the very objectice of their philosophy is to remove it. This mellower approach appeals to me, personally.

Hello NoOne...just a few thoughts.
Do you think this transformation occurs over just one lifetime? And that the pain and suffering are thus contained to that lifetime?

Also, it seems to me that there is individuation of consciousness which is eternal like all consciousness. For individuated consciousness, it simply exists eternally from the moment of individuation within the One. It (we) exists both for the sake of One and for its own sake. And it exists to more fully realise itself, both as One and as itself (ourselves).

Thus there is an interesting tension between suffering and growth. In the sense that the more we move the locus of consciousness away from individuation, the less growth can occur through the experience of the individuated consciousness (including the experience of suffering). For this reason, Buddhism's focus on authethic love (as both lovingkindness and equanimity) is true in the deepest and most universal sense. As are the general realisations common to most traditions regarding the illusion of separation and the foundational connection of all things.

But its emphasis on moving the locus of consciousness away from individuation (but not so far as to totally disassociate) is therefore more an occasional means of balancing in one's centre in authentic love. Engaging fully in the moment is often the far more difficult activity, requiring that we be fully present in our body and with our pain and suffering. Living in one's awakened heart centre, with mind in service to heart, requires that ongoing balance of lovingkindness and equanimity. Such that we actively seek and support the highest good of others equally to our own, and our own, equally to that of others.

Peace & blessings
7L
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Bound by conventions, people tend to reach for what is easy.

Here we must be unafraid of what is difficult.

For all living beings in nature must unfold in their particular way

and become themselves despite all opposition.

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