Why spiritual life is so truthful
 

I think if we are really honest about our thoughts and beliefs, and not take them for granted, we'll be surprised that we don't really believe 1/2 the things we think we do. We will also be surprised at things we do believe in which we think we don't.

I was 19 when I lost my religion. I was brought up Christian, and all the adults seemed so sure that I started to rely on it as something true. When I was 19 I didn't even realise I was a believer. I didn't go to church or pray or anything like that, and I lived as if I didn't believe, but deeper down I was deeply convinced that God was a 'person' and Jesus was gonna save us. It was only when I lost the religion that I realised I still had these deep seated beliefs.

I lost it suddenly. All at once. It was instantaneous. I still remember the night. In a flash the belief was seen as untrue. The problem was, there was nothing to replace it, so not only did I lose the belief, but the very substructure which is belief.

People who were never religious and people who are still religious wont understand how devastating that is, but everything you lean on and hope for, and that perfect person who you can always turn to, who supposedly loves you, who is ultimately your only hope, is gone. But suddenly knew it was all the things I was told - an imagined paradigm which I took-to-be-true.

I was living a lie on more that one level back then, and because I had long since replaced being true to myself with a false God story, I suffered the consequence of being deeply untruthful. I don't complain. It was hard and I lost my mind over it, but it's the best thing that ever happened. If I was still in the comfort of that delusion I'd be happier, but I don't need faith, and I don't need to know anything to be truthful.

To the religious people reading this; I'm not implying you need to dump your religious beliefs. This is just how I lost it. I understand well how losing religion can be traumatic, but accept the truth because the truth is worth it, and don't be apathetic about falling too easily into that comfort which is bondage.

Over to you.

It might be helpful if you Google “YouTube Sadhguru on religion”. I thought this was awesome.

Interesting, Gem, I was 19 when I had my talk with Jesus...ha :tongue:...
I said, I'm gonna leave you for awhile.
Respectfully, it was implied: "For awhile to find out stuff...deeper stuff.''

And off I went to the Key West Library on Fleming...and brought back my first pile of books from everywhere and diff geniuses,
Einstein, Jung, Russel, Greek philosophers, etc.....
only to return them and bring back Eastern books...and off I went and eventually found
'It'...exactly what I was looking for ---and 'It' was inside. :hug3:

I’ll say it doesn’t matter what we believe in or not. Beliefs are a function of mind, of conditioning and subject to change, besides being limited.

Do we need to believe in the rising sun, in our breath, our aliveness? No. We feel it, know it. Likewise it is with God.

We have our own path we need to walk on. It is a guided process. Now, in my understanding, based on experiences I’ve had and so true for me (need not be for anyone else), God alone is, a singular consciousness. Call it nonduality, the one manifest as many.

The form we have assumes a temporary life of its own, which we call ego or identity. The ego wishes to know the truth but clings to the mind-body vehicle which it ‘owns’. Thus, we search without letting go of the shore, metaphorically speaking.

Any practice requires surrender, acceptance, cessation. So we do it partly in meditation etc but there’s always a residual identity present, except perhaps in deep Samadhi. The problem is in searching for or becoming what we already are, meaning all is one and there is no one here.

At the level of manifestations, two highly spiritually people I know first hand as good friends, well, they’ve interacted with Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, Vishnu, Maha Avatar Babaji, Yukteswar Giri and many more the ethereal domain. I rely on an affirmation of Yukteswar Giri ‘The presence of form in any realm or domain signals unfulfilled desire’.

So what is God? We must find out ourselves because someone else’s experience is not ours, it is at best a signpost (if we trust the source).

I have never felt comfortable with the concept of religion. I think it is a notion without any rational or logical basis.

I think belief has to be renewed continually. It is possible to believe something, but with time it fades. It's like a plant that has to be watered.

To add to that, I think a belief can be wrong or mistaken without all of it being wrong.

For example, the belief that God is a person - for me this didn't work.

For me it seems it is better to think of God as a being, yes, but unlike a person as far as possible.

For Dreamt
 

Yes I do agree with you on that point. Everyone experiences god in their own personal way thru their own experience and that’s ok too.

Beliefs are only good for what we care to manifest as reality, but they are not the foundation of a more permanent reality. That more permanent reality, in my opinion, can be found in spirituality. A religious person can also be spiritual but a spiritual person does not need to be religious.

Religion is an attempt to codify spirituality, spirituality in its purest sense can not be codified or defined. I was also raised a Christian, but at 19-years old I was involved in a war in Vietnam, when I consciously gave up Christianity and became an agnostic.

I did not want to believe in anything without unwavering proof. Then I lost my eyesight and went blind for about 5-years. I saw things when I was blind that I failed to see when I had 20/20 vision. The experience of spirit was far removed from anything I had previously believed.

For me today, experience is the great teacher. Belief is but a prediction of how I think, or even feel, things will happen or are happening, and often they do not happen according to my beliefs. Beliefs can bring us hopes or fears, but uninterpreted raw experience has the greatest impact on us.

It is all in how we interpret things, that leads to our understanding and beliefs about those things. A deep sense of spirituality, as I have come to know it, is beyond words and thoughts. It transcends human language and imagination. It can not be contained or boxed in a mental construct/concept.

Yes starman I totally agree with you. I feel there is a difference between believing and knowing. Experience is knowing! And I tend to sit on the fence unless I can say I KNOW.