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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > General Beliefs

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  #41  
Old 20-02-2018, 09:29 AM
Greenslade
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emeraldheart
I'm an athiest and I'm the happiest person I know hahahahaha
That's only because you don't know me, Emerald. Budge over a bit.

If you want to good belly laugh have a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5gm9hoTw6Y
They're talking about the movie The Life of Brian which parodies (putting it mildly). If you're an atheist and as a bonus a Monty Python fan it's damned hilarious. And you'll be damned for watching it. Even if you're not a Python fan it's still a good watch.
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  #42  
Old 20-02-2018, 07:36 PM
peteyzen peteyzen is offline
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The thing is, when you tread a spiritual path whatever it is, there are different levels, we are all at different places in our development. The aim really is to go beyond our human condition and remember our true nature, this requires taking on and controlling our human ego. This can only be done with humility. The problem is our egos shape shift into our spirituality, that's when the problems start and recognising this is the real skill
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  #43  
Old 20-02-2018, 11:14 PM
Greenslade
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by peteyzen
The thing is, when you tread a spiritual path whatever it is, there are different levels, we are all at different places in our development. The aim really is to go beyond our human condition and remember our true nature, this requires taking on and controlling our human ego. This can only be done with humility. The problem is our egos shape shift into our spirituality, that's when the problems start and recognising this is the real skill
The simplest definition I've seen for 'ego' is that "it's a sense of I am," and that was from Jung. The go is all kinds of things to all kinds of people, including the very Victorian 'root of all evil' and mostly that comes from Spiritual people who are trying to be the epitome of Spirituality. Spiritual people have egos too, even the ones who claim 'ego death' - which is the Victorian definition of 'ego' itself.

We came from Spirit to become human and have the human experience/learn the lessons. What does that tell you? The focus of Spirituality is to run away from what is human and Spirituality is a human framework, not a framework of Spirit.
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  #44  
Old 21-02-2018, 04:36 AM
Eelco
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenslade
We came from Spirit to become human and have the human experience/learn the lessons. What does that tell you?

What if the sense of I am is just a side effect of the way our brain processes information?
Time exists only if we apply a pattern on top of our experience here and now. Imagining (now) what happened before and assumptions on what will happen next.

When we say we come from spirit. What does that mean.
Is Spirit another sense of I AM?
What are these lessons we keep inventing to make sense of our experiences?

Let it go(yes like the frozen song)

With Love
Eelco
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  #45  
Old 21-02-2018, 09:04 AM
Greenslade
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by catsquotl
What if the sense of I am is just a side effect of the way our brain processes information?
Time exists only if we apply a pattern on top of our experience here and now. Imagining (now) what happened before and assumptions on what will happen next.

When we say we come from spirit. What does that mean.
Is Spirit another sense of I AM?
What are these lessons we keep inventing to make sense of our experiences?

Let it go(yes like the frozen song)

With Love
Eelco
Process information is what we do, really that's all Spirituality is. I am isn't a side effect it's the main cause, our consciousness is a two-way processing of information, filtered through and biased by what we think, what we feel, our agenda..... I have a perception of time because I look at my face in the mirror and see wrinkles, which I didn't have as a teenager. And it takes me all week to do what I used to do all night. I've been told that reality is like the single frames of a movie passing by our eyes so fast we see seamless motion, well if that's how it is then fine but I can't experience it.

Spirit is another aspect of my multi-dimensional Self, the relationships of which I'm still figuring out but t the same time I know I don't have the faculties to understand anyway. It doesn't stop me trying, that is my Spirit. There is an immense sense of freedom, of liberation that underpins everything, there's no harm in smelling the flowers on the way past.
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  #46  
Old 21-02-2018, 10:18 PM
Eelco
Posts: n/a
 
Do you mind me splitting hairs?

I can no longer say for certain that the sense of I AM is some eternal I Am.
If I look at the examples you show. I would explain these as follows.

The fact that there are now wrinkles when you look at your reflection in the mirror. Is seeing your reflection and thinking about a previous reflection where these wrinkles weren't there. However the consciousness having the experience of seeing a wrinkled man in the mirror is totally different than the consciousness that at some point in the past saw a face in the mirror without wrinkles.

Same goes for the consciousness that now takes a week to do what needs doing. It remembers a consciousness that did it faster. However the remembering is happening right here right now to a consciousness that in no way resembles the consciousness that used to do stuff all night..

Now I know this is stretching the concepts a bit, but in essence it is what I think is happening. Back in the day I would construct some form of ego or I am using memories. I am still doing the same with more memories superimposing a sense of continuity which may or may not be there..

I must confess that in a state of deep meditation(some vipassana style as tought by Ajahn Tong)i did experience glimpses of reality stopping and starting up again.As if they were static scenes that had no correlation from one moment to the next.
This could very well have been wishful thinking or be explained as some fabrication as I was expecting something like that to happen from other peoples explanations and stories. Also it is not something I can easily reproduce as an experience..
Going on another retreat this april so maybe then?
Mahasi Sayadaw also talks about this phenomenon in some of his books on vipassana meditation.

With Love
Eelco
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  #47  
Old 23-02-2018, 09:09 AM
Greenslade
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by catsquotl
Do you mind me splitting hairs?

I can no longer say for certain that the sense of I AM is some eternal I Am.
If I look at the examples you show. I would explain these as follows.

The fact that there are now wrinkles when you look at your reflection in the mirror. Is seeing your reflection and thinking about a previous reflection where these wrinkles weren't there. However the consciousness having the experience of seeing a wrinkled man in the mirror is totally different than the consciousness that at some point in the past saw a face in the mirror without wrinkles.

Same goes for the consciousness that now takes a week to do what needs doing. It remembers a consciousness that did it faster. However the remembering is happening right here right now to a consciousness that in no way resembles the consciousness that used to do stuff all night..

Now I know this is stretching the concepts a bit, but in essence it is what I think is happening. Back in the day I would construct some form of ego or I am using memories. I am still doing the same with more memories superimposing a sense of continuity which may or may not be there..

I must confess that in a state of deep meditation(some vipassana style as tought by Ajahn Tong)i did experience glimpses of reality stopping and starting up again.As if they were static scenes that had no correlation from one moment to the next.
This could very well have been wishful thinking or be explained as some fabrication as I was expecting something like that to happen from other peoples explanations and stories. Also it is not something I can easily reproduce as an experience..
Going on another retreat this april so maybe then?
Mahasi Sayadaw also talks about this phenomenon in some of his books on vipassana meditation.

With Love
Eelco
Tolle said that the past is memory and the future is expectation so that would fit but there's still the perception of even simple things like taking one step at a time. There's still the perception of starting and ending it. It's been said that our reality passes in front of us like a series of frames in a movie, only it's happening at so many frames a second it appears to be seamless motion. That might explain your static scenes. I had a spell where I was experiencing weirs rime dilations and other strangeness. I remember walking along and having this sensation, then wondering which reality I;d suddenly been beamed into. My body felt like a spacesuit I was using to navigate that reality and for a few minutes I wasn't a part of it. Had they carried on any longer I'd have gone totally gaga, it was having such an effect.

Many years ago I honestly thought I was going insane because there were two of me inside here. There still is but I'm used to it now and how it shifts from one to the other. I don't know which I am I am, if I am both or neither or it depends on which one is needed in the moment.
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  #48  
Old 05-12-2018, 10:49 PM
Lucky 1 Lucky 1 is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: 27.8006 North 97.3964 West, Texas Gulf Coast
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VinceField
Funny, I've heard this somewhere before. Oh yea, the Bible.

Actually...what we know as "The Golden Rule".. Do unto other as you would have done to you..is often credited to the bible...but it predates the bible by several thousand years....its Buddhist.
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Yes I Am a Pirate! 200 years too late....the cannons don't thunder...there's nothing to plunder...I'm an over 40 victim of fate!

Maybe we're all here because we ain't all there????

If you're lucky enough to have been born in TEXAS....you're lucky enough!
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  #49  
Old 05-12-2018, 11:34 PM
Shivani Devi Shivani Devi is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2015
Posts: 10,861
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peteyzen
The thing is, when you tread a spiritual path whatever it is, there are different levels, we are all at different places in our development. The aim really is to go beyond our human condition and remember our true nature, this requires taking on and controlling our human ego. This can only be done with humility. The problem is our egos shape shift into our spirituality, that's when the problems start and recognising this is the real skill
I totally agree with this.

It seems that whenever a person is involved in a set of conditioned beliefs, no matter what those are... atheism, theism, naturalism, spiritualism and all the other "isms" out there, there is a natural tendency to exert or defend their whole philosophy with rhetoric under the auspice of it being a "logical premise" when it is still just conditioned belief, which ever way it goes.

I have reached the conclusion that each of our spiritual paths is individually tailored to fit every nook and cranny of the subjective, holistic personae and as such, there is not a "one size fits all" policy in regards to any "ism" or even "rationality" as those are still all perception-based.

Thing is, many/most people are terrified about going out on a limb and being left there all alone to rot, so they seek safety and comfort in numbers and this is where proselytism and conversion comes in, because the more people they get to agree with them or believe in whatever it is they do, the more comfortable and secure they feel within themselves about whatever it is they believe in.

The fear most people have, is of being ignored. Thus, they seek to create whatever controversy they can just to give their lives a sense of meaning. I mean, if one is going to go fishing, they would do well to bait their hook beforehand, no? or else, they can decide just to let others do the fishing because they are "fishermen" while you much prefer to tend your OWN garden, because you are a "gardener" and not a "fisherman"... fishing just does not interest you one little bit.

Then of course, there will be times when the fisherman will catch no fish, but will get very hungry...and then YOU get to decide whether or not you are going to share your organically grown produce with them...but if they are always going to bite the hand that feeds them and be totally ungrateful, you can always get to say "go away" and then, let any God that only YOU believe in be the judge of your actions, since mankind has not earned that right...but I am just waffling on as usual. LOL
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