What does spiritual development actually mean?

[God-Like]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

This says it far better than I ever could.


"Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience. It's what Alan Watts referred to as "The Backwards Law" - the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces that fact that you lack it in the first place. The more you desperately want to become rich, the more poor and unworthy you feel regardless of how much money you make. The more you want to be sexy and desired, the uglier you come to see yourself regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more you want to be happy and Loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become regardless of those who surround you. The more you want to be Spiritually Enlightened, the more self-centred and shallow you become in trying to get there.”

Hey G.S.

I hear this a lot tbh and I think it's true enough but it really depends on the situation at hand.

When I had my deepest of sufferings in hindsight I realized the beauty and the magic of it all and at the time of suffering I didn't want to deny it, or suppress it and it did take it's natural course, very similar to the process of grief in regards to the passing of my parents of late ..

What I would say in my defence so to speak is that at a point one seemingly can't take anymore so there has to be a change in energy that happens or you will literally drown in sorrow and grief and sufferings ..

The sun however has to rise eventually and I know that for some there has to be the willingness and the participation of keeping afloat and and eventually swimming into new areas of lighter experience ..

There does for some require a tremendous amount of love and support and effort to do this ..

So from this perspective if your feeling that you can't go on for much longer, you need the strength from somewhere, whether it is from deep within or from other sources ..

It's okay to feel lack, alone unloved or desolate and it's okay to want to feel no lack, and loved and supported also ..

I think the main point is the energy that one has about them when one is experiencing the need to be in an energy of where they are currently not yet experiencing .

It's this living in the now concept that seems to give peeps the impression that it's wrong to reach for the stars when you have hit rock bottom ..

Empowerment, Inspiration amongst other energies exist and come into effect in order to reach for the stars and not wallow in self pity ..

Of course not everyone wallows in self pity forevermore but you get my point ..

Another point is devotion .. dedication .. discipline where one has the deepest of desires and a longing for sufferings to end and to realize Self or God ..

Some will say that these energies are required in order to fulfil such a quest .. There has to be a genuine self sense of association here I would say in all instances .


x daz x

Originally Posted by Altair

Enjoyed reading the points you made GS..

Honestly, all this faith in guru's and scriptures makes modern spirituality just religion 2.0, and not this whole ''I'm spiritual, not religious'' bonkers. People are already creating agreed-upon ''truths'' and structures, with the ''right'' practices they agree upon and the ''right'' masters and scriptures they agree upon. What we are witnessing is the active formulating of a new religion, and damned be anyone who comes to different conclusions.. those will be ''of the ego'', they will not be ''the absolute truth'' etc.

Thanks Altair, much appreciated.

Personally I think that if you don't understand the definitions you don't have a clear perspective of what you're talking about, and when you can say "This is Spiritual and this is religion" then it makes more sense. But Spirituality and religion are interconnected. Similarly with Spirituality and psychology but few seem interested in the 'human side'. By the way, "Absolute Truth" is of the ego because it categorises truth. It's also human nature for people to practice their Spirituality religiously for quite a few psychological factors.

Originally Posted by Altair

Essentially, I often see little difference between much of modern spirituality and a group of evangelical Christians who all come to the same ''conclusion'' of ''the truth of the Bible'' and ''we all had the same mystical experience of Jesus''. Advaitists and other similar paths are just same old, same old. I find all these ascetic, Advaitists to be little different from Christian evangelicals. They re-invigorate one another, convinced that they ''have the same experience'' because they use the same language and the same scripture to interpret a subjective experience, just like evangelicals do..

It's been said that every religion was right for that culture at that time so I suppose it's worth asking if this religion/Spirituality is right for our present culture. Perhaps what many are doing is simply trying to 'push the reset button' and find a firmer base from which to have a perspective. Religion was originally 'designed' as a road to Spirituality as far as I'm aware - do these things and you'll be wiser/enlightened/etc. From that context they're all talking the same religion, only the context is different. As for interpreting subjective experience I think they all have it back-to-front.

Originally Posted by Altair

There's also a general disdain for knowledge outside of their context, and I suspect your decades of experience in mental health might be seen as frightening to belief systems as it can demystify the God-men. What if the great guru will indeed be in diapers and has to be fed with the spoon? Shouldn't they just stay completely intact with all their memory and just fly to the sky..? What if they are just humans?

Disdain is one
word for it but it actually goes deeper into psychology. Some of it is even survival genetics believe it or not. The good thing about having had mental health experience is that it gives you a very different perspective on reality. What many don't realise is how much of their reality is formed by their own narratives and how they programme their paradigms - like labelling themselves as 'Spiritual'. It may sound cool but there's a very different story behind that which leads to this whole 'What is ego or not?' argument.


Being egoless is probably one of the great Spiritual goals but when someone thinks they're better/holier/more Spiritual than anyone else? One of the members I haven't seen on here for a while once coined the phrase 'Spiritual ego', and what he meant by that was some egoless people people were full of their own self-importance as much as egoic people were. This is one instance where Jungian ego makes sense of what's going on.



What if we are all re-emergent Spirit?

[Emm]

My own personal understanding of being without ego is when we move to action that doesn't involve the mind...an instant motivation. I'm sure we've all seen or remember occasions of what that looks like...a heroic act where the hero themselves denies the title simply because they sprung into action without thinking about it and were amazed themselves of what they were capable of. That to me its an example of our spiritual intelligence that is always present...its what I guess the spiritual seeker, the ego, is looking for.

So I can't see how being without ego would make you dysfunctional physically or mentally, in fact the opposite would be true. Spiritual intelligence in fact is far more aware and focused in our present moment than the ego can ever be with mind thoughts being anywhere other than the present. Thoughts are just words that we identify ourselves with but they are not us...but intelligence has no needs for words, the entire message is instant and you just know and act...and the ego then goes back to re-member what has just taken place.

That's how I see it anyway

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Emm

My own personal understanding of being without ego is when we move to action that doesn't involve the mind...an instant motivation.

Humans do that a lot of the time. Many of our habits and activities, such as driving or eating, can happen without conscious, deliberate thought processing. ''Ego'' is not some entity we can grab and capture on a brain scan, it's an abstract concept, a judgement and perhaps a 'tool' used by some as a sense of right and wrong, like ''illusion'' vs ''true spirituality'', ''attachment'' vs ''love'' and other stuff used in spiritual conversation. Stuff that 'works' in philosophy, but has less meaning out there..

When it comes down to it, life goes more like this: I hit my leg, I feel this sensation. I hug this person, I feel that sensation. I enjoy this book, I feel X. I eat this food, I feel Y. There's no grand 'mystery'. There is the abstraction of the mind and much of spiritual tradition is walking in circles describing and philosophising these things.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Thanks Altair, much appreciated.

Personally I think that if you don't understand the definitions you don't have a clear perspective of what you're talking about, and when you can say "This is Spiritual and this is religion" then it makes more sense. But Spirituality and religion are interconnected. Similarly with Spirituality and psychology but few seem interested in the 'human side'. By the way, "Absolute Truth" is of the ego because it categorises truth. It's also human nature for people to practice their Spirituality religiously for quite a few psychological factors.

Yes, they're interconnected, deeply so. Religion basically means 'communing with the divine'. Spirituality has been used in modern times as a catchy and trendy thing outside of religion, which is deemed structured, exoteric, and collectivist, whereas spirituality is often touted as individualistic and esoteric. However, by defining it we are already creating boundaries, 'rules', agreed-upon 'truths', etc. All the guidelines and 'practices', guru's and scriptures in paths already very much indicate structure, discipline, and order. Spirituality becomes the very thing they wanted it not to be. This is ironic..

[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by Emm

My own personal understanding of being without ego is when we move to action that doesn't involve the mind...an instant motivation. I'm sure we've all seen or remember occasions of what that looks like...a heroic act where the hero themselves denies the title simply because they sprung into action without thinking about it and were amazed themselves of what they were capable of. That to me its an example of our spiritual intelligence that is always present...its what I guess the spiritual seeker, the ego, is looking for.

So I can't see how being without ego would make you dysfunctional physically or mentally, in fact the opposite would be true. Spiritual intelligence in fact is far more aware and focused in our present moment than the ego can ever be with mind thoughts being anywhere other than the present. Thoughts are just words that we identify ourselves with but they are not us...but intelligence has no needs for words, the entire message is instant and you just know and act...and the ego then goes back to re-member what has just taken place.

Hi Emm,

In the interest of clarity and intellectual honesty, I feel that proper definitions within the context of the discussion at hand (spiritual) are important, vs. as we often see including this thread, the persistent illegitimate importation and almost inanely arbitrary conflation of definitions from other contexts (academic, pop-culture, etc.; Carl Jung is a spiritual master??) which muddy the waters as a polemical device, to deliberately confuse in order to generate existential purpose, e.g., holding court of opinion, because confusion is and requires that circularity of indeterminacy. It keeps us busy, but to what end? Well, the mind needs something to do.

That’s the monkey mind, restless, energized, and its movement is something we attach to in a subservience to nature/prakriti we like to think is our “independence”, with ignorant opinion as its externalization. (caveat: I’ll include myself in that scheme just to avoid the almost certain accusations of elitism, condescension, etc. one inevitably encounters in these ultimately theoretical discussions on spiritual topics.)

Therefore, I agree with much of what you wrote with some minor reservation, so I’d like to suggest that what you call “spiritual intelligence” is really descriptive of intuition.

Intuition is received by a subjective knowing based in oneness -
knowing by identity which is the most direct means.

We typically experience various approximations, diminutions, and distortions of this as we evolve, but in the native truth-consciousness of the supra-mental, the pure intuition does four things INSTANTANEOUSLY and SIMULTANEOUSLY:

1) it provides revelation
2) it provides inspiration
further…
3) it shows the significance of any truth
4) it discriminates relative significance of different truths.

And it is #4 which accounts for the knowing of any individuated truth or will as an inseparable aspect of the One Self, even when differentiated within the dynamic multiplicity of the physical plane.

To suggest that this kind of facility results in an infantile dysfunction is, well, ummm…

By contrast, ego is a separative cognition formed by ignorance of true unitary self. This is ego in the spiritual sense, a conditional reality we incarnate into in which each human being is a microcosm of the cosmic condition of material and separative ignorance (of true self) and we conditionally see ourselves in and through that false cognition of separativity.

However this particular false cognition is not exclusive in human life - we also have available direct access to means of knowing our true self and therefore all Self (because we are all essentially THAT), and this is the purpose of spiritual development.

A large part of spiritual practice therefore involves the assiduous examination and displacement of this false cognition of ego in and through various means so that true self becomes the unconditional Reality.

Naturally, if one holds fast with white knuckle intensity to the very falsehood that ego represents, spiritual development cannot proceed, leading to a common existential quagmire:

My spiritual aspiration is awakened by a grace that is the emerging consciousness of truth, which implies certain transitions, transformations, and transcendence; the sacrifice of status quo. But that seems frightening to a familiar sense of comfort in my current “separate” identity, so I want to preserve what “I know” - e.g. my ignorance - by rejecting the very thing suggested by awakening. One way to do this is to very cleverly substitute adamantly rationalized circular intellectual arguments of ego aplogetics as a reasoned defense of my false identity thus preserving indefinitely the necessity and sovereignty of ego-mind. But in doing so I create a necessarily confused life and delay my spiritual progress. Accordingly, I even frequent spiritual discussions for the (evidently) express purpose of negating and invalidating spirituality. And that’s also why I’ll keep cynically insisting as an elevation of my prerogative to invalidate, that there is no such thing as spiritual progress! In this abject confusion I keep substituting one reactive objective falsehood for another, so I’m just generating a blur, a movement that I call “truth”, and yet I’m hopelessly attached to that process I see in the rear-view mirror as “me”.

Why this issue is important in spiritual development is because practice/sadhana is based to a large extent on being able - - or willing!! - - to relinquish this false objective separative sense of self and its ensuing infra-recursive dynamics. Unquestionably and traditionally, self-less acts (karma yoga) is one way to begin to do this as your example proposes.

You are imo also correct that intuition (I’m transposing the term from “spiritual intelligence” for the sake of clarity) is far superior to ego-mind precisely because it is faster, surer, more accurate and directly knowing vs. the objective separative tediously reasoned inferences, presumptions, prejudices and “conclusions” (usually false, partial, distorted, etc.) of the ego-mind.

Unfortunately as we all experience, ego-mind and its ignorant formations often intercede by doubting and distorting what we do receive intuitively, and why it takes continued practice e.g., spiritual development to supersede the familiar dominance of ego-mind.


~ J

[Molearner]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

You are imo also correct that intuition (I’m transposing the term from “spiritual intelligence” for the sake of clarity) is far superior to ego-mind precisely because it is faster, surer, more accurate and directly knowing vs. the objective separative tediously reasoned inferences, presumptions, prejudices and “conclusions” (usually false, partial, distorted, etc.) of the ego-mind.

Unfortunately as we all experience, ego-mind and its ignorant formations often intercede by doubting and distorting what we do receive intuitively, and why it takes continued practice e.g., spiritual development to supersede the familiar dominance of ego-mind.


~ J

Jyotir,

Thanks as always for your articulation and thread development. I immediately thought of some of the works of Rudolph Steiner that gave pointed emphasis to the importance of intuitive thinking. Looking up I noticed that his book _The Philosophy of Freedom_ has been retitled and is now _Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path_. A brief introduction and explanatory to some degree can be found at this site:

www.doyletics.com/_arj1/philfree.htm

One can notice in this article a reference to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on _Self-Reliance_. Emerson also emphasized the role of intuition. Our normal way of thinking(via acquired knowledge, cultural influences, ego demands, etc) IMO contains landmines for anyone earnestly pursuing spiritual development.

Thanks for your contributions.

[Emm]

Originally Posted by Altair

[color="Navy"]Humans do that a lot of the time. Many of our habits and activities, such as driving or eating, can happen without conscious, deliberate thought processing.

That's not quite what I was referring to Altair, what you speak of are learned processes that I agree we can go into auto mode through repetition ...what I was speaking of is of an inspired action that comes from seemingly no-where, that doesn't follow the norm but you know with absolute clarity what to do and the energy behind it is so great you cannot not do it. All you can do is go with the flow until it is done.

Originally Posted by Altair

''Ego'' is not some entity we can grab and capture on a brain scan, it's an abstract concept, a judgement and perhaps a 'tool' used by some as a sense of right and wrong, like ''illusion'' vs ''true spirituality'', ''attachment'' vs ''love'' and other stuff used in spiritual conversation. Stuff that 'works' in philosophy, but has less meaning out there..

When it comes down to it, life goes more like this: I hit my leg, I feel this sensation. I hug this person, I feel that sensation. I enjoy this book, I feel X. I eat this food, I feel Y. There's no grand 'mystery'. There is the abstraction of the mind and much of spiritual tradition is walking in circles describing and philosophising these things.

It may be an abstract concept but one that is necessary at times when we try to use language to describe the difference between what we consider to be the norm and those beyond the limitations the mind had once lived under. Once the ego has witnessed a greater reality that he can't explain, that there is more to life than those limiting constraints of his conditioning he begins his quest to know more but in the beginning is still using the tools that he knows. Its a bit like wanting to fly like a bird but all the arm flapping you can muster won't get you off the ground. Only a greater awareness of self helps you catch those moments you know are different which are like breadcrumbs to where you want to go. That's what I call awakening...you're awake to the fact there's more so become more alert/focused to find the clues to the next step.

Its not easy to explain, not for me anyway, and even more difficult if the other person has no idea of what you are referring to if they have not witnessed that for themselves. But I'm sure we all get there in the end sooner or later.

[Emm]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Hi Emm,

In the interest of clarity and intellectual honesty, I feel that proper definitions within the context of the discussion at hand (spiritual) are important, vs. as we often see including this thread, the persistent illegitimate importation and almost inanely arbitrary conflation of definitions from other contexts (academic, pop-culture, etc.; Carl Jung is a spiritual master??) which muddy the waters as a polemical device, to deliberately confuse in order to generate existential purpose, e.g., holding court of opinion, because confusion is and requires that circularity of indeterminacy. It keeps us busy, but to what end? Well, the mind needs something to do.

That’s the monkey mind, restless, energized, and its movement is something we attach to in a subservience to nature/prakriti we like to think is our “independence”, with ignorant opinion as its externalization. (caveat: I’ll include myself in that scheme just to avoid the almost certain accusations of elitism, condescension, etc. one inevitably encounters in these ultimately theoretical discussions on spiritual topics.)

Therefore, I agree with much of what you wrote with some minor reservation, so I’d like to suggest that what you call “spiritual intelligence” is really descriptive of intuition.

Intuition is received by a subjective knowing based in oneness -
knowing by identity which is the most direct means.

We typically experience various approximations, diminutions, and distortions of this as we evolve, but in the native truth-consciousness of the supra-mental, the pure intuition does four things INSTANTANEOUSLY and SIMULTANEOUSLY:

1) it provides revelation
2) it provides inspiration
further…
3) it shows the significance of any truth
4) it discriminates relative significance of different truths.

And it is #4 which accounts for the knowing of any individuated truth or will as an inseparable aspect of the One Self, even when differentiated within the dynamic multiplicity of the physical plane.

To suggest that this kind of facility results in an infantile dysfunction is, well, ummm…

By contrast, ego is a separative cognition formed by ignorance of true unitary self. This is ego in the spiritual sense, a conditional reality we incarnate into in which each human being is a microcosm of the cosmic condition of material and separative ignorance (of true self) and we conditionally see ourselves in and through that false cognition of separativity.

However this particular false cognition is not exclusive in human life - we also have available direct access to means of knowing our true self and therefore all Self (because we are all essentially THAT), and this is the purpose of spiritual development.

A large part of spiritual practice therefore involves the assiduous examination and displacement of this false cognition of ego in and through various means so that true self becomes the unconditional Reality.

Naturally, if one holds fast with white knuckle intensity to the very falsehood that ego represents, spiritual development cannot proceed, leading to a common existential quagmire:

My spiritual aspiration is awakened by a grace that is the emerging consciousness of truth, which implies certain transitions, transformations, and transcendence; the sacrifice of status quo. But that seems frightening to a familiar sense of comfort in my current “separate” identity, so I want to preserve what “I know” - e.g. my ignorance - by rejecting the very thing suggested by awakening. One way to do this is to very cleverly substitute adamantly rationalized circular intellectual arguments of ego aplogetics as a reasoned defense of my false identity thus preserving indefinitely the necessity and sovereignty of ego-mind. But in doing so I create a necessarily confused life and delay my spiritual progress. Accordingly, I even frequent spiritual discussions for the (evidently) express purpose of negating and invalidating spirituality. And that’s also why I’ll keep cynically insisting as an elevation of my prerogative to invalidate, that there is no such thing as spiritual progress! In this abject confusion I keep substituting one reactive objective falsehood for another, so I’m just generating a blur, a movement that I call “truth”, and yet I’m hopelessly attached to that process I see in the rear-view mirror as “me”.

Why this issue is important in spiritual development is because practice/sadhana is based to a large extent on being able - - or willing!! - - to relinquish this false objective separative sense of self and its ensuing infra-recursive dynamics. Unquestionably and traditionally, self-less acts (karma yoga) is one way to begin to do this as your example proposes.

You are imo also correct that intuition (I’m transposing the term from “spiritual intelligence” for the sake of clarity) is far superior to ego-mind precisely because it is faster, surer, more accurate and directly knowing vs. the objective separative tediously reasoned inferences, presumptions, prejudices and “conclusions” (usually false, partial, distorted, etc.) of the ego-mind.

Unfortunately as we all experience, ego-mind and its ignorant formations often intercede by doubting and distorting what we do receive intuitively, and why it takes continued practice e.g., spiritual development to supersede the familiar dominance of ego-mind.


~ J

Hi Jyotir, thank you for this ...you made me laugh but also amazed with your use of preciseness of language which I envy.

Yes intuition seems apt I agree but there was one element of which I spoke of that is missing here and that is of the force of energy behind the action in those intuitive moments or is that what you meant by 'inspiration'?

Please forgive my own ignorance of language I've never been that great of a communicator which is frustrating as I also agree its important to get it right. I feel there is so much I could say but can't unscramble it without taking the entire day (or more) to do it and then still not be satisfied.

So, thank you for clearing it up for me

[Shivani Devi]

Originally Posted by Emm

Hi Jyotir, thank you for this ...you made me laugh but also amazed with your use of preciseness of language which I envy.

Yes intuition seems apt I agree but there was one element of which I spoke of that is missing here and that is of the force of energy behind the action in those intuitive moments or is that what you meant by 'inspiration'?

Please forgive my own ignorance of language I've never been that great of a communicator which is frustrating as I also agree its important to get it right. I feel there is so much I could say but can't unscramble it without taking the entire day (or more) to do it and then still not be satisfied.

So, thank you for clearing it up for me

I also remain in awe and admiration over Jyotir's use of absolutely perfect English grammar and vernacular. His posts have always been delightful; a sheer pleasure to read (including his offerings in this thread).

I also admit to being slightly envious of the ability to communicate with such precise elocution. I admit to being good at it, but I cannot even touch his level! There we to, ego and humility in one sentence.

Whenever Jyotir appears on stage, I always stand back and go "whoa...the floor is all yours, mate". His tongue is so sharp, it can slice granite...one day people..one day but not today.