The Varieties of Religious Experience

[Shivani Devi]

...by William James.

Reading and studying this book is not for the faint hearted, or one who doesn't have much time.

Seeing as how I don't have the patience to actually sit down and read a book anymore, I listen to audiobooks while I am busy doing stuff.

Thankfully, Librivox has placed this book (written in 1902) in the public domain... unfortunately, the whole recording goes for over 20 hours.

The Varieties of Religious Experience consists of 20 lectures given by William James and each lecture goes for an hour...I am up to lecture 8, but I am absolutely enjoying what I am listening to so far.

Here is an excerpt from the book about the Once Born vs Twice Born:
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2016/05...e-born-people/

Even though it was written over 100 years ago, it is refreshingly contemporary and includes submissions by the great thinkers of the time, like RW Emerson.

It actually explains a LOT about what is happening NOW, in regards to religion vs spirituality and why we are finding ourselves at this unique position.

For those interested, here is the audio recording of the full book:
https://librivox.org/varieties-of-re...william-james/

It is best to tackle this thing one chapter/lecture at a time.

What I am enjoying the most, is the colourful use of the English Language back at the turn of the last century..It seemed to be a whole different time..A whole different world back then..but the use of the language resembling poetic prose is so delightful to my ears.

I hope there are some among you who may enjoy this..find it useful and helpful. Even if you listen to one chapter a day for 20 days, I feel as if you would be all the better for it... That's IF you are able to understand it, of course.

[Molearner]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

...by William James.

Reading and studying this book is not for the faint hearted, or one who doesn't have much time.

Seeing as how I don't have the patience to actually sit down and read a book anymore, I listen to audiobooks while I am busy doing stuff.

Thankfully, Librivox has placed this book (written in 1902) in the public domain... unfortunately, the whole recording goes for over 20 hours.

The Varieties of Religious Experience consists of 20 lectures given by William James and each lecture goes for an hour...I am up to lecture 8, but I am absolutely enjoying what I am listening to so far.

Here is an excerpt from the book about the Once Born vs Twice Born:
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2016/05...e-born-people/

Shivani Devi,

Interesting that you posted this today. I started a thread today on cosmic consciouness in the Spiritual Development forum and the article that I referenced gave a brief recounting of the cosmic consciuosness experience of William James.

Not to distract from the intention of your thread but there is an interesting maxim that Christians have concerning Once Born vs. Twice Born. It is this: Born once, die twice......Born Twice, die once. Meaning twice born promises eternal life......therefore one just suffers the physical death. Born once meaning that one experiences both the physical death and the spiritual death.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Molearner

Shivani Devi,

Interesting that you posted this today. I started a thread today on cosmic consciouness in the Spiritual Development forum and the article that I referenced gave a brief recounting of the cosmic consciuosness experience of William James.

Not to distract from the intention of your thread but there is an interesting maxim that Christians have concerning Once Born vs. Twice Born. It is this: Born once, die twice......Born Twice, die once. Meaning twice born promises eternal life......therefore one just suffers the physical death. Born once meaning that one experiences both the physical death and the spiritual death.

That is very interesting and I shall check out the link you provided as well.

What I found to be important, after listening to William James, is the wrong idea I had about "Once Born" and "Twice Born" I thought "Once Born" related to being born in the physical world and "Twice Born" meant a "spiritual rebirth".

What I understand now is that the "Once Born" are like Adam and Eve were before they ate the Apple... Innocent, child-like, naive and fully loving and trusting in God without asking any questions... without having any fear - just like how a child will go up and hug a king, while others are kneeling and bowing reverently before him. Being "Once Born" is to exist in that simple state of wonder and awe..being happy for the sake of happiness, even if 'bad stuff' happens, they can just shrug it of with the resilience that "living for the moment" provides.

Being "Twice Born" is when something drastic or dramatic happens which shakes them to the very core of that apple...their "rose colored glasses" become broken and they start to question all the above. Their depression and misery then becomes a "trial by fire" and they lose the whole innocence they once had, whereby LIFE made them happy as a "default" way of existence and now, they have to go and search for happiness and meaning in their lives...go and find it to put themselves in that situation, where as being "Once Born", they never even had to think of doing any of that.

[handy guy]

For me the "Self" as pointed to Hindu teachings gets the death and fear monkeys as often mentioned in Christianity off peoples back and mind. Sure there is suffering and hells recognized in Hinduism but they are not eternal and souls do not suffer there eternally (how could they if one uses a little spiritual sense about such issues?) How the Saint Ramakrishna (or Swami Yogananda and some others) studied Abrahamic religions and then came up with saying or alluding to that they also lead to "God" as in the Self is beyond me, for Christian teachings are largely and in major aspects directly opposite to those of Hindu teachings.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by handy guy

For me the "Self" as pointed to Hindu teachings gets the death and fear monkeys as often mentioned in Christianity off peoples back and mind. Sure there is suffering and hells recognized in Hinduism but they are not eternal and souls do not suffer there eternally (how could they if one uses a little spiritual sense about such issues?) How the Saint Ramakrishna (or Swami Yogananda and some others) studied Abrahamic religions and then came up with saying or alluding to that they also lead to "God" as in the Self is beyond me, for Christian teachings are largely and in major aspects directly opposite to those of Hindu teachings.

Funnily enough, what I am referencing here, are all the Christian Gnostic masters during the late 19th and early 20th Century and even though I am a Hindu myself (or at least my EGO identifies as one), this has nothing whatsoever to do with it...apart from the outcome of whatever "Christ Consciousness" is, probably..probably being the same as the Buddhist Nirvana or the Hindu Samadhi...and that's as far as it goes, but thank you for taking the time to reply..It is much appreciated.

[handy guy]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

Funnily enough, what I am referencing here, are all the Christian Gnostic masters during the late 19th and early 20th Century and even though I am a Hindu myself (or at least my EGO identifies as one), this has nothing whatsoever to do with it...apart from the outcome of whatever "Christ Consciousness" is, probably..probably being the same as the Buddhist Nirvana or the Hindu Samadhi...and that's as far as it goes, but thank you for taking the time to reply..It is much appreciated.

Well probably adding Buddhism to the mix (with its absolute insistence on "no-self", and their non-importance about a non-eternal God) would muddy the waters even further... Also New age, Old age and clever or interesting variations of Christianity that cherry pick the Bible for their own purposes need to come clean imo. and outright admit that they do not believe in or follow certain key teachings of the Bible, thus to be honest those groups should name themselves something else. (like neo-universalists or something)

[Molearner]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

That is very interesting and I shall check out the link you provided as well.

What I found to be important, after listening to William James, is the wrong idea I had about "Once Born" and "Twice Born" I thought "Once Born" related to being born in the physical world and "Twice Born" meant a "spiritual rebirth".

What I understand now is that the "Once Born" are like Adam and Eve were before they ate the Apple... Innocent, child-like, naive and fully loving and trusting in God without asking any questions... without having any fear - just like how a child will go up and hug a king, while others are kneeling and bowing reverently before him. Being "Once Born" is to exist in that simple state of wonder and awe..being happy for the sake of happiness, even if 'bad stuff' happens, they can just shrug it of with the resilience that "living for the moment" provides.

Being "Twice Born" is when something drastic or dramatic happens which shakes them to the very core of that apple...their "rose colored glasses" become broken and they start to question all the above. Their depression and misery then becomes a "trial by fire" and they lose the whole innocence they once had, whereby LIFE made them happy as a "default" way of existence and now, they have to go and search for happiness and meaning in their lives...go and find it to put themselves in that situation, where as being "Once Born", they never even had to think of doing any of that.

Shivani Devi,

Yes, I understood James reading on this. It sort of aligns with what Erich Heller was quoted as saying in the Wikipedia entry.......in regards to the Fall. Especially noting that essentially man entered/developed a new consciousness as a result of the Fall.

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by handy guy

Well probably adding Buddhism to the mix (with its absolute insistence on "no-self", and their non-importance about a non-eternal God) would muddy the waters even further... Also New age, Old age and clever or interesting variations of Christianity that cherry pick the Bible for their own purposes need to come clean imo. and outright admit that they do not believe in or follow certain key teachings of the Bible, thus to be honest those groups should name themselves something else. (like neo-universalists or something)

Okay, I get your point about Anatta...so we shall leave Buddhism out of the equation. The philosophy of No Self was only used to distance early schools of Buddhism from the Hindu Advaita traditions of the time...When the Hindu would say "you are the Self" and the Buddhist would say "what is the Self?...What is You that IS the indefinable Self? So, in a way, I can see their point.

When the early Hindu teachers brought the message of Hinduism to the West...you know, Yogananda, Vivekananda, Krishnamurthi et al, they used passages from the Bible to illustrate or reinforce certain Hindu teachings, so the audience at that time could "grok it" (deeply get it).

They sought to explain Eastern concepts in a way that the conditioned Western mind could relate to by making it "comparative" when we both know, there is absolutely nothing comparative between Christianity and Hinduism in ANY way and I totally agree with you...If a Hindu is going to go around quoting from the Bible all the time, it is better if they DO convert to Christianity and learn it properly.

I like to jokingly say "we have more than enough "Gods"...we don't really need any more".

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by Shivani Devi

...by William James.

Reading and studying this book is not for the faint hearted, or one who doesn't have much time.

Seeing as how I don't have the patience to actually sit down and read a book anymore, I listen to audiobooks while I am busy doing stuff.

Thankfully, Librivox has placed this book (written in 1902) in the public domain... unfortunately, the whole recording goes for over 20 hours.

The Varieties of Religious Experience consists of 20 lectures given by William James and each lecture goes for an hour...I am up to lecture 8, but I am absolutely enjoying what I am listening to so far.

Here is an excerpt from the book about the Once Born vs Twice Born:
https://reasonandmeaning.com/2016/05...e-born-people/

Even though it was written over 100 years ago, it is refreshingly contemporary and includes submissions by the great thinkers of the time, like RW Emerson.

It actually explains a LOT about what is happening NOW, in regards to religion vs spirituality and why we are finding ourselves at this unique position.

For those interested, here is the audio recording of the full book:
https://librivox.org/varieties-of-re...william-james/

It is best to tackle this thing one chapter/lecture at a time.

What I am enjoying the most, is the colourful use of the English Language back at the turn of the last century..It seemed to be a whole different time..A whole different world back then..but the use of the language resembling poetic prose is so delightful to my ears.

I hope there are some among you who may enjoy this..find it useful and helpful. Even if you listen to one chapter a day for 20 days, I feel as if you would be all the better for it... That's IF you are able to understand it, of course.

Once again, our paths show commonality that is no longer surprising.

William James' classic and the logic behind it is quite awesome. Since meditative experiences cvan be considered subjective to a large extent, it is often difficult to validate their occurrences. However, as William James duly noted, the collective experiences that have very obvious similarities do support the validity of the mystical experience across multiple traditions. James' classic is indeed a masterpiece.

If you're familiar with Carl Jung (which I am confident that you are), his theory of the collective unconscious was approached in a similar manner. The great Sufi Mystic, Hazrat Inayat Khan, considered Jung to be the foremost of the psychologists in his time since Jung empirically bordered on the spiritual (the unity in diversity).

This is a good topic.

[handy guy]

Hello Shivani, Thanks for the feedback. I agree with most of the points you brought up about certain teachers trying to make comparisons... I would say that among most religions there is some common ground since their is some common ground in the fact of us all being human beings with common and or basic needs and concerns. Music and the lifeforce in it are a universal language that goes beyond rigid ideas and dictates written in stone that religions may become like...when or if things will ever be resolved along such lines is anybody's guess.