What does spiritual development actually mean?

[Altair]

Originally Posted by Siemens

Yes, I agree with almost everything you said in your last post. Could we say then:
>> Spiritual development means to increase one’s capability to experience pleasure << ?

After that, the question: “How do we develop spiritually?” would be interesting and synonymous to the question: “How do we increase our capability to experience pleasure?” My current answer is that there are multiple tools for increasing our ability to experience pleasure. Among these are contrast-experiences and deprivation. You yourself gave an example when you said you like the feeling after a cold shower. Whether or not you like the cold water itself, in any case your reward is a peasant feeling afterwards. Also sexual abstinence can be something positive if you practice it for the purpose of or with the consequence that you feel sex more intense after the period of deprivation.

It's about specific pleasures, and you may switch or replace one for another. There is no escaping it however. Spiritual traditions boogeyman 'pleasure', 'lust', 'desire', 'attachment' but they just replace them with other things that are essentially serving a very similar purpose in life. However, these replacements receive better and more fanciful names..

There's no ''grand plan'' to move away from anything or into or towards anything. You want spiritual fulfilment, you may get it, but eventually you're going to seek something else again because that's what life in the universe does. Nobody ends the game. It is about creativity, not about any end destination. As I said, these are just the traditions that seek order and stability, they obsess over the noun, but the coin that portrays the universe has two sides, just as we do..

Blossoming, expansion, relating to the spirit.
Letting go of the physical dilemmas.

[Emm]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

What does spiritual development mean?

It means the conscious deliberate dedication and consecration of life-energy toward knowing, serving, and actually becoming (Realisation) the Divine in the physical, e.g., the divinisation of the physical in and through each individual life for the sake of the divine and the divine Will alone.

Divine Will is the dynamic manifestation of truth-consciousness in the multiplicity of the physical, acting in and through the individual life. It is the true comprehensively creative force. The first contact, the first recognition of this as a possibility, is what we refer to as ‘awakening’.

All types of development and learning are within this general evolutionary scheme, but the spiritual phase in human life is a specifically defined concentration and acceleration of the general tendency which requires a conscious focus of intention that is increasingly and consciously aligned with the divine intention or Will.

This represents a definitive departure or distinct orientation to life's possibilities beyond a normal, conventional circumscription by desire-mind...and this requires both an UNLEARNING (of ignorant cognition, intention, and action)- and a devotion, discrimination, and surrender to the essential divinity within, that is veiled by the ignorant nature...but gradually awakening in the individual (self) consciousness.

The pursuit of pleasure (strictly speaking from the spiritual pov, and not representative of semantic entanglements), therefore may be a phase of this process prior to ‘awakening’. But since pleasure involves the limitations of the physical senses and importantly, intentions and actions involving ego (objective separative consciousness), desire, and desire-mind which are inherently ignorant and therefore limiting by nature - and why suffering is inevitable as a consequence - as such do not constitute the full identity and expression of the divine which is inherently unlimited by nature, and why truly liberating.

Therefore to say that spiritual development is for the pursuit and experience of pleasure per se, is at best a partial truth, misleading distortion, or misconception based in the self-same ignorance that operates through such pursuits i.e., desire-life proper.

Yes, much of human life substantially involves these desire-based intentions and actions now - but they must be understood as transitional in the evolution of human life from out of the animal…and into the divine.

This is the significance of spiritual development in self-conscious human life.


~ J

Yes, this exactly. So eloquently put

[Aethera]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

What does spiritual development mean?

It means the conscious deliberate dedication and consecration of life-energy toward knowing, serving, and actually becoming (Realisation) the Divine in the physical, e.g., the divinisation of the physical in and through each individual life for the sake of the divine and the divine Will alone.

Divine Will is the dynamic manifestation of truth-consciousness in the multiplicity of the physical, acting in and through the individual life. It is the true comprehensively creative force. The first contact, the first recognition of this as a possibility, is what we refer to as ‘awakening’.

All types of development and learning are within this general evolutionary scheme, but the spiritual phase in human life is a specifically defined concentration and acceleration of the general tendency which requires a conscious focus of intention that is increasingly and consciously aligned with the divine intention or Will.

This represents a definitive departure or distinct orientation to life's possibilities beyond a normal, conventional circumscription by desire-mind...and this requires both an UNLEARNING (of ignorant cognition, intention, and action)- and a devotion, discrimination, and surrender to the essential divinity within, that is veiled by the ignorant nature...but gradually awakening in the individual (self) consciousness.

The pursuit of pleasure (strictly speaking from the spiritual pov, and not representative of semantic entanglements), therefore may be a phase of this process prior to ‘awakening’. But since pleasure involves the limitations of the physical senses and importantly, intentions and actions involving ego (objective separative consciousness), desire, and desire-mind which are inherently ignorant and therefore limiting by nature - and why suffering is inevitable as a consequence - as such do not constitute the full identity and expression of the divine which is inherently unlimited by nature, and why truly liberating.

Therefore to say that spiritual development is for the pursuit and experience of pleasure per se, is at best a partial truth, misleading distortion, or misconception based in the self-same ignorance that operates through such pursuits i.e., desire-life proper.

Yes, much of human life substantially involves these desire-based intentions and actions now - but they must be understood as transitional in the evolution of human life from out of the animal…and into the divine.

This is the significance of spiritual development in self-conscious human life.


~ J

Very well put~

Originally Posted by Emm

Yes, this exactly. So eloquently put

Jyotir =

150% accuracy in spiritual discussions

Originally Posted by Jyotir

What does spiritual development mean?

It means the conscious deliberate dedication and consecration of life-energy toward knowing, serving, and actually becoming (Realisation) the Divine in the physical, e.g., the divinisation of the physical in and through each individual life for the sake of the divine and the divine Will alone.

Divine Will is the dynamic manifestation of truth-consciousness in the multiplicity of the physical, acting in and through the individual life. It is the true comprehensively creative force. The first contact, the first recognition of this as a possibility, is what we refer to as ‘awakening’.

All types of development and learning are within this general evolutionary scheme, but the spiritual phase in human life is a specifically defined concentration and acceleration of the general tendency which requires a conscious focus of intention that is increasingly and consciously aligned with the divine intention or Will.

This represents a definitive departure or distinct orientation to life's possibilities beyond a normal, conventional circumscription by desire-mind...and this requires both an UNLEARNING (of ignorant cognition, intention, and action)- and a devotion, discrimination, and surrender to the essential divinity within, that is veiled by the ignorant nature...but gradually awakening in the individual (self) consciousness.

The pursuit of pleasure (strictly speaking from the spiritual pov, and not representative of semantic entanglements), therefore may be a phase of this process prior to ‘awakening’. But since pleasure involves the limitations of the physical senses and importantly, intentions and actions involving ego (objective separative consciousness), desire, and desire-mind which are inherently ignorant and therefore limiting by nature - and why suffering is inevitable as a consequence - as such do not constitute the full identity and expression of the divine which is inherently unlimited by nature, and why truly liberating.

Therefore to say that spiritual development is for the pursuit and experience of pleasure per se, is at best a partial truth, misleading distortion, or misconception based in the self-same ignorance that operates through such pursuits i.e., desire-life proper.

Yes, much of human life substantially involves these desire-based intentions and actions now - but they must be understood as transitional in the evolution of human life from out of the animal…and into the divine.

This is the significance of spiritual development in self-conscious human life.


~ J

This is spot on and should just be pinned.

JL

[Moondance]

Originally Posted by Jyotir

What does spiritual development mean?

It means the conscious deliberate dedication and consecration of life-energy toward knowing, serving, and actually becoming (Realisation) the Divine in the physical, e.g., the divinisation of the physical in and through each individual life for the sake of the divine and the divine Will alone.

Divine Will is the dynamic manifestation of truth-consciousness in the multiplicity of the physical, acting in and through the individual life. It is the true comprehensively creative force. The first contact, the first recognition of this as a possibility, is what we refer to as ‘awakening’.

All types of development and learning are within this general evolutionary scheme, but the spiritual phase in human life is a specifically defined concentration and acceleration of the general tendency which requires a conscious focus of intention that is increasingly and consciously aligned with the divine intention or Will.

This represents a definitive departure or distinct orientation to life's possibilities beyond a normal, conventional circumscription by desire-mind...and this requires both an UNLEARNING (of ignorant cognition, intention, and action)- and a devotion, discrimination, and surrender to the essential divinity within, that is veiled by the ignorant nature...but gradually awakening in the individual (self) consciousness.

The pursuit of pleasure (strictly speaking from the spiritual pov, and not representative of semantic entanglements), therefore may be a phase of this process prior to ‘awakening’. But since pleasure involves the limitations of the physical senses and importantly, intentions and actions involving ego (objective separative consciousness), desire, and desire-mind which are inherently ignorant and therefore limiting by nature - and why suffering is inevitable as a consequence - as such do not constitute the full identity and expression of the divine which is inherently unlimited by nature, and why truly liberating.

Therefore to say that spiritual development is for the pursuit and experience of pleasure per se, is at best a partial truth, misleading distortion, or misconception based in the self-same ignorance that operates through such pursuits i.e., desire-life proper.

Yes, much of human life substantially involves these desire-based intentions and actions now - but they must be understood as transitional in the evolution of human life from out of the animal…and into the divine.

This is the significance of spiritual development in self-conscious human life.


~ J

Hi J

Nice essay which I was in accord with until I got to this bit:

The pursuit of pleasure (strictly speaking from the spiritual pov, and not representative of semantic entanglements), therefore may be a phase of this process prior to ‘awakening’. But since pleasure involves the limitations of the physical senses and importantly, intentions and actions involving ego (objective separative consciousness), desire, and desire-mind which are inherently ignorant and therefore limiting by nature - and why suffering is inevitable as a consequence - as such do not constitute the full identity and expression of the divine which is inherently unlimited by nature, and why truly liberating.

Therefore to say that spiritual development is for the pursuit and experience of pleasure per se, is at best a partial truth, misleading distortion, or misconception based in the self-same ignorance that operates through such pursuits i.e., desire-life proper.

Yes, much of human life substantially involves these desire-based intentions and actions now - but they must be understood as transitional in the evolution of human life from out of the animal…and into the divine.

This is the significance of spiritual development in self-conscious human life.

Now it may be those semantic entanglements that you mention but on face value this doesn’t sit right.

Many everyday tasks entail ‘intentions and actions involving ego’ no less for the awakened than the unawakened - although far less frequent. This is due to the fact that despite the spiritual hype there is no such state within the human spectrum as complete and continuous abdication or freedom from ego. Ego in the spiritual sense means identification with a specific body-mind-matrix. Now, the sage has discovered and inhabits a ‘realm’ beyond such identification but in certain circumstances involving certain types of tasks, transactions and interactions the sage will (indeed, must) employ/inhabit a (at least partial) identification with the body-mind.

This could be called secondary identification (I think Eckhart Tolle may have used this distinction) which is employed/evoked for practical and functional purposes. It’s this type of secondary identification which allows us to say I am a father, this is my car, I am a democrat, I am a teacher etc. Built into this structure are, by default, certain preferences - even desires - which in the context of specific tasks or interactions will naturally lead to the arising of pleasure, satisfaction or on the other hand, occasional (possibly fleeting) disappointments etc.

There is no state of the divine (in human terms) where these secondary identifications and the entailments mentioned would be (could be - unless we are talking about inhuman levels of asceticism) completely left behind - and who would desire that anyway.

[Unseeking Seeker]

***

Right. There is attention oscillation and the process of fulcrum shift takes time. Who’s to say whether consciousness gets to a point when there is seamless, unbroken centred-ness in an endless continuum ...

***

[HITESH SHAH]

Lots of good well meaning responses . My 2 cents .

Character development definitely is inseparable component of spirituality. Otherwise any undisciplined thoughts can be attributed to spirituality .

While pleasure is a goal in spirituality , it is better called bliss . Pleasure connotes more material association . Spiritual development is gradual increase of spirituality component over a period of time . By default every body has some level of in-built spirituality . Here the direction and orientation is more important . Spiritual oriented activity (Sattva) takes precedence over material oriented activity(Rajas) and material induced inactivity (Tamas ) .

Spirituality does many things .

It perpetuates . e.g. Democracy means rule of people, for people and by people . This in essence is the spirit of democracy . With spirit going / dying from democracy it may reduce to rule of few , by the few and for the few . Only the spiritual orientation of people perpetuates essence of any good things generation after generation .

It permeates . In sports teams co-operates well and acts as a co-hesive unit , it can be said the team spirit is good . Spirituality of team members permeates the excellence in the team and brings out the best in the team and accordingly the team performs superb .

Originally Posted by Moondance

Hi J

Nice essay which I was in accord with until I got to this bit:


Now it may be those semantic entanglements that you mention but on face value this doesn’t sit right.

Many everyday tasks entail ‘intentions and actions involving ego’ no less for the awakened than the unawakened - although far less frequent. This is due to the fact that despite the spiritual hype there is no such state within the human spectrum as complete and continuous abdication or freedom from ego. Ego in the spiritual sense means identification with a specific body-mind-matrix. Now, the sage has discovered and inhabits a ‘realm’ beyond such identification but in certain circumstances involving certain types of tasks, transactions and interactions the sage will (indeed, must) employ/inhabit a (at least partial) identification with the body-mind.

This could be called secondary identification (I think Eckhart Tolle may have used this distinction) which is employed/evoked for practical and functional purposes. It’s this type of secondary identification which allows us to say I am a father, this is my car, I am a democrat, I am a teacher etc. Built into this structure are, by default, certain preferences - even desires - which in the context of specific tasks or interactions will naturally lead to the arising of pleasure, satisfaction or on the other hand, occasional (possibly fleeting) disappointments etc.

There is no state of the divine (in human terms) where these secondary identifications and the entailments mentioned would be (could be - unless we are talking about inhuman levels of asceticism) completely left behind - and who would desire that anyway.

Limits limit the limitless

There are those who excel. in more ways than one.