Should we even be spiritual while incarnated in the physis? And why do we incarnate?

[Altair]

Originally Posted by janielee

Fundamentalist is not what we are seeing - this is a spiritual forum and this is a reality anyone can see in their own lives; your use of the word fundamentalist here is a way of discrediting a perspective you can’t see because you despise spiritualists and imagine that spirituality means turning from the world.

Spiritualists deal with the communication with the dead. I didn't know this topic was about that.

Originally Posted by janielee

In fact, imv, only spiritual people - genuinely realised spiritual people - can truly help this world in the deepest way possible.

No, that's not true. Many people without any interest in spirituality help and improve society, create medicine, invent tech to help the disabled, help animals etc.

This notion that only a ''genuinely realised spiritual'' person can ''truly help this world'' is a fundamentalist statement, and smacks of elitism.
It makes any person irrelevant unless they're ''realised''. I would say anyone who wants to help, or puts their effort into it, can contribute.

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future”

[Altair]

Originally Posted by iamthat

Did I say that people can only be happy if they are poor?
Did I say that people should not have temporary enjoyment?

Indeed not. Those are examples one can read from in scriptures, examples I used to explore the anti-world view that are common in spiritual traditions..

Originally Posted by iamthat

I did say "We can enjoy the material world and all that is has to offer..." - nothing sobering or depressing about that. I do enjoy my material existence - it is very pleasant and easy and comfortable. I have no worldly goals but I happen to have enough wealth to not have to work, and I enjoy my wealth. I am very grateful for all my blessings. But I am aware that it is only temporary, and one day I will leave it all behind.

Originally Posted by iamthat

The original topic was why bother being spiritual - why not just embrace the material while in the physical body? Maybe the real question is, can someone who knows only the material world be genuinely happy and fulfilled every day? If so, then great. To me, it seems as if any happiness or fulfilment based on material circumstances is somewhat precarious. Whereas happiness and fulfilment which arises from within does not depend on anything external. Hence I advocate the spiritual path of being in the world but not of it.
Peace

Consider me unconvinced, iamthat. We can be sitting in peace and go within but eventually we will have to move, eat, sleep, and pay the bills. If the basic needs are not met then there will be unhappiness. Our happiness in this world does depend on the external. Your observation that it does not aligns with the part I highlighted earlier: You have enough wealth and do not need to work, you enjoy your blessings.. hence, your basics are met, which offer you the means to invest time in other pursuits. It gives a sense of being independent from the external because you don't have to think about it as much..

Originally Posted by Altair

How do you know this was your intention..?

Good questions overall. I do not know why we incarnate. I haven't found an answer that makes sense, most explanations mention 'past lives' but then most people don't have past life memories. It also doesn't explain why we'd have to endure the same sort of experiences over and over again, or learn to walk, talk, and do other chores over and over again. If we're on a cycle then it's a pretty meaningless cycle. It's what you make of it, probably, so if you want to enjoy yourself and don't chase spirituality than I don't see the issue.

Sit yourself down quietly one night when the world has gone dark. Do candles, music or anything that will put you 'in the zone'. Sit back and ask yourself one question - "How different would the world be if I had never existed in the first place?"

Your intention was what is for you.

Originally Posted by Siemens

Aren’t these spiritual activities things that we could do when we are dead and in the beyond? I mean, for what reason did we incarnate in the physis when we then orient ourselves back toward the non-physis were we actually came from?

Just for one day wear a blind person's glasses and noise-cancelling earplugs. Then go about your normal routines. How do you deal with the frustration of having bumps and bruises before you even navigate yourself out of the front door? How angry are you at you limitations already and you've only just picked up your car keys after a long search - only to remind yourself you're blind?

In Spirit, Spirituality doesn't amount to more than a hill of beans. Nor does so-called Unconditional Love, forgiveness, gratitude.

And incarnation means we didn't come from 'here', we came from 'up there'. Spirituality has it backwards - but you're on the right track.

Originally Posted by iamthat

Agree. This is a spiritual forum. The first step on the spiritual journey is to look within.

Peace

Looking within is understanding the reasons for your use of the word "Spiritual" as a prefix, and how that affects your Spirituality. And if there is nothing that isn't Spiritual, doesn't the use of the word become irrelevant to all intents and purposes?

Perhaps non-Spiritual is in the eyes of cognitive dissonance and the understanding that the user might well be running away from a part of themselves they don't particularly like or can deal with? I'm not singling you our specifically though. What we also need to think about if we're truly going 'deeper' is that we don't ignore things for the sake of over-use of the label.

[Anne]

As far as tenets go, I have trouble with the phrase ‘be in the world but not of it’.

It always seems to rub me the wrong way, maybe because it sounds dispassionate and/or too elitist, like an excuse of some sort not to dirty one’s hands.

Why indeed do we incarnate on this planet if not to embrace, enjoy and commiserate with all the world offers? And why should this forum cater to only self-proclaimed spiritual people?

I really hope there’s room here for those with alternative viewpoints, or those questioning and seeking to learn.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Anne

As far as tenets go, I have trouble with the phrase ‘be in the world but not of it’.

It always seems to rub me the wrong way, maybe because it sounds dispassionate and/or too elitist, like an excuse of some sort not to dirty one’s hands.

If we want inner peace then there is value in detachment, resting in our centre untouched by the ups and downs of life. We still act in the world, doing what needs to be done, and this may mean getting our hands dirty, but at the same time we are not attached to our actions nor the results of what we do. This is the practice of karma yoga.

Peace.

[Miss Hepburn]

Physis definition
The term physique, for "the bodily constitution of a person", is a 19th-century loan from French.
In medicine the suffix -physis occurs in such compounds as symphysis, epiphysis, and a few others, in the sense of "a growth".
The physis also refers to the "growth plate", or site of growth at the end of long bones.

Why did I incarnate? Cuz I'm a very slow learner.
Should I be spiritual? If I want to be really happy, yes.
And if I want to work on not incarnating again here and advancing to bigger and better things, yes.

(Even tho I trust I'm perfectly where I'm at, at all times.)

[Anne]

Originally Posted by iamthat

If we want inner peace then there is value in detachment, resting in our centre untouched by the ups and downs of life. We still act in the world, doing what needs to be done, and this may mean getting our hands dirty, but at the same time we are not attached to our actions nor the results of what we do. This is the practice of karma yoga.

Peace.

Thank you iamthat for the response. I can appreciate there is value in detachment and generally love and respect the proponents of ‘let it go-let it flow’.

Maybe I was souled up the river of empathy, lol, for I just cannot fathom detachment and empathy together.
Sigh.., balance must be the key to inner peace .

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Anne

Why indeed do we incarnate on this planet if not to embrace, enjoy and commiserate with all the world offers?

Hello again, Anne:

I have come to the conclusion that earthly (i.e. 'incarnational') existence is much more than that: it is actually a soul-birthing kindergarten/nursery (soul=Conscious-Spirit) .

The (that is, my ) answer to the Q you pose is contained in the following snippet from my treatise:

Souls ‘graduate’ from Earthly-life’s ‘school’ when their reincarnational learning and development ‘curriculum’ has thus been completed. Having realized their Cosmic ‘I’dentity (termed ‘Christhood’ by some and spoken of as [every]one’s ‘Buddha Nature’ by others) to be The Spirit of Life Itself, such souls operationally function as full-fledged colleagues of what Jesus referenced as ‘the Father’ from then on. Those who have grasped the fact that the pronouns I and me as used in Jesus’ statements actually reference The Entity (i.e., the entirety) of Life’s Flow –Why? Because, as elucidated in Chapter 1, he personally completely ‘i’dentified with It! –who now also grok the fact that the above-described reincarnational learning-and‑development-leading-to-graduation process is what ‘leads’ to such collegial recombination, will have no trouble recognizing that it is said all‑encompassing Flow-phenom, and not himself personally, that Jesus was referencing when he emphatically declared: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me!” (John 14:6)