How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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Dontaskme
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Dontaskme »

sthitapragya wrote:
Why does oneness need adventure? Indeed, why does oneness need anything? The way you describe it, it is eternal bliss. So why does it NEED? If oneness needs, it is dissatisfied. In which case, there is something missing. Which means it is not perfect and bored. Why is oneness bored?

If oneness is complete in itself, it would not need to create illusions. In which case, no separateness would exist.
Okay, I'm not good at finding the correct words, oneness doesn't need anything it is everything, but in order to experience itself it does need a body in which to have an experience.

The body and the energy operating the body are one.

why would this desire an adventure? ...why not.

The desire to have an adventure comes from the will to do so. Nothing can happen with out the will to do so.

Why do you get out of bed every day, is because you want to live, you want to have an experience. If you didn't you'd just lie there all day doing nothing.

But it's not the body getting up in the morning, it is the will to do so. The body can't do anything without the will to.

Oneness doesn't care whether it does anything or not, for example, trees and flowers don't have adventures, they don't do anything, but that's just how they are programmed, but humans do have adventures, the human dynamic is just an extension of the one energy expressing itself as having an adventure only because there is a will to do so, the will is free to what ever it wants.
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Dontaskme
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Dontaskme »

sthitapragya wrote:
I have read Shankaracharya's advaitism extensively. And I can understand why people don't get it. However, the people who do, usually become hermits and lose all interest in materialistic life. They renounce everything and go live in the mountains with nature and eat the simplest of foods. When you do that, when you lose interest in everything material, and just leave for the jungles to eat what you can and live off the land, that is when you can claim to know what it means. Its a putting your money where your mouth is kind of a deal. SO I promise you. You don't get it either. You are sitting in the comfort of your home having this discussion with me. You don't get it.
We cannot get this because we are it.

That's the cosmic joke, we seek what we already are...because we believe we are separate... the feeling of separation instinctively seeks for wholeness, it's an unnatural contraction that feels uncomfortable.

The baby always seeks for it's mothers nipple for comfort for wholeness. It could not survive on it's own. But it is never separate from it's mother because is has come from inside her. Everything has come out of the womb of creation which is the void. void is emptiness in form.... form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
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Lacewing
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Lacewing »

Dontaskme wrote:...only direct seeing of embodied awareness will see this. You'll either see this or you won't, but it doesn't matter at all... really!
Why not revel in being here... and the "forgetting" it entails? Why must there be some "known point" to strive towards, in order to move beyond this?

"The one" can do whatever it wants to with all of itself. It can attack and be attacked by itself, and see what all of that feels like. It can love and hate. It can expand and contract.

But is there anything it NEEDS to be doing differently than what it is doing?

Surely there is much more than any of us can fathom about the nature of our existence. I become very wary when anything is explained in too much detail, because I don't think we can know. I always see value in expanding ourselves beyond our limits, but I try to respect and accept limits too... as I think they are part of the whole tapestry, and I'm thinking that the whole tapestry is magnificent. Not something to be cut up or shredded as a result of any ideas on how to use the threads better! :D There is something very magical about how things are. None of it needs to be... and I suspect none of it is "going" anywhere. Regardless of the ideas we come up with throughout what we consider to be time and significance, our awareness and presence is still like reflections in water.

We are free to do many things within our small scope. Even pretending that we can know and touch all else. But I'm guessing that the most real thing that can ever flow through our vibration is full-blown unconditional all-encompassing love. All the rest of it is guessing games... and we can love that too. Our interactions are convincingly real but ultimately temporary and meaningless... and we can love that too. We are greatly limited, and vainly seeking significance... and we can love that too.

When it all comes back to love... it's sweet, and nothing else is needed.
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Dontaskme
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Dontaskme »

Lacewing wrote:
Dontaskme wrote:...only direct seeing of embodied awareness will see this. You'll either see this or you won't, but it doesn't matter at all... really!
Why not revel in being here... and the "forgetting" it entails? Why must there be some "known point" to strive towards, in order to move beyond this?

"The one" can do whatever it wants to with all of itself. It can attack and be attacked by itself, and see what all of that feels like. It can love and hate. It can expand and contract.

But is there anything it NEEDS to be doing differently than what it is doing?
It does revel, but it also likes to play the game of hide and seek with itself, it's just what ever is arising. The seeker is just what's playing out like everything else, no one is doing it, it's just what's happening.

And yes,
You are always already what you are doing right now. This has no need.

We are nothing, but in order to be something, well that needs a body...a counter part. You can't play a game without someone to play it with. That's all I meant. I'm using the word to explain something, of course oneness doesn't need anything.
Last edited by Dontaskme on Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Lacewing
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Lacewing »

sthitapragya wrote:I have read Shankaracharya's advaitism extensively. And I can understand why people don't get it. However, the people who do, usually become hermits and lose all interest in materialistic life. They renounce everything and go live in the mountains with nature...
Although I can see the appeal of this... I came across an idea that made more sense to me in Sufi teachings, which was something like: Anyone can go live in a cave and find enlightenment, but the true master is the one who can do it in the middle of a noisy crowded street.

I understand the point behind renouncing things of this world... but something within me argues that doing so is ignoring the magnificence of this creation... and denying PARTS of the total manifestation... and if all is ONE, why are we denying any of it?

What do you think?

Maybe when we stop resisting... which essentially engages/perpetuates the illusion we are resisting... then it is freed to transform?
Last edited by Lacewing on Wed Jun 22, 2016 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dontaskme
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Dontaskme »

sthitapragya wrote:
Oh man, you are really going to make me do this? Very well. First of all, you have no reasonable evidence to support the claim that the victim and perpetrator are not separate other than your claim to the ability to see what others cannot see. The fact is that in real life, if a person shoots me dead, I am dead and he is alive. My family will grieve for my loss, they will feel the after effects of my death when they find out that they have to pay the huge debt I have left behind and the will curse me all their lives after that. Everyone gets affected.


“We seldom realize, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society. We copy emotional reactions from our parents, learning from them that excrement is supposed to have a disgusting smell and that vomiting is supposed to be an unpleasant sensation. The dread of death is also learned from their anxieties about sickness and from their attitudes to funerals and corpses. Our social environment has this power just because we do not exist apart from a society. Society is our extended mind and body. Yet the very society from which the individual is inseparable is using its whole irresistible force to persuade the individual that he is indeed separate! Society as we now know it is therefore playing a game with self-contradictory rules.”

― Alan W. Watts, The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

More wisdom here... https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/5 ... ho-you-are
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Dontaskme
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Dontaskme »

Lacewing wrote: Although I can see the appeal of this... I came across an idea that made more sense to me in Sufi teachings, which was something like: Anyone can go live in a cave and find enlightenment, but the true master is the one who can do it in the middle of a noisy crowded street.
This is beautifully said.

chop wood carry water :wink:
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Dontaskme »

sthitapragya wrote:
Of course we still have to deal with the part where you have not given any proof of this theory, just made a proclamation which we are supposed to take for the eternal truth just because it came from you.
Proof is for those who are in doubt.

There is one thing certain beyond all reasonable doubt and that is that you are aware, alive right now....the rest is history. Make what ever story you want of it, it's your dream.

As for living out in a cave for the rest of eternity, sod that I'm enjoying the circus too much.



''Nothingness does not invalidate the world we live in; it authenticates it, clarifies it by revealing its true nature. All things are born from Nothingness, abide in and as Nothingness, and eventually subside into Nothingness.

When we realize the Void, we don’t stop caring about our lives. Quite the opposite, in fact. I would argue that any spiritual realization or practice that does not ultimately lead back to a healthier, saner way of engaging our daily lives is incomplete. Enlightenment does not breed indifference or detachment.''



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This will be my last post for a week or so, because I am going on holiday.
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Lacewing
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Lacewing »

Dontaskme wrote:it also likes to play the game of hide and seek with itself
Is there any greater importance on the hiding or the seeking... or is all balanced/equal?
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by sthitapragya »

Lacewing wrote:
sthitapragya wrote:I have read Shankaracharya's advaitism extensively. And I can understand why people don't get it. However, the people who do, usually become hermits and lose all interest in materialistic life. They renounce everything and go live in the mountains with nature...
Although I can see the appeal of this... I came across an idea that made more sense to me in Sufi teachings, which was something like: Anyone can go live in a cave and find enlightenment, but the true master is the one who can do it in the middle of a noisy crowded street.

I understand the point behind renouncing things of this world... but something within me argues that doing so is ignoring the magnificence of this creation... and denying PARTS of the total manifestation... and if all is ONE, why are we denying any of it?

What do you think?

Maybe when we stop resisting... which essentially engages/perpetuates the illusion we are resisting... then it is freed to transform?
Lacewing, I was talking particularly with relation to the oneness theory. Once you KNOW you are one, the only way to experience it is out in the open under extreme conditions. That is why exponents of advait or oneness renounce the world. To truly experience it. If you talk of oneness in the comfort of your home, well, it's just wrong at so many levels.

In today's world they would probably go to Syria and experience life there to experience oneness. I am pretty sure Dontaskme is not even considering it in the remotest corner of his mind.

And just FYI, Krishna has always been considered the most charismatic God in hinduism because he is the only one who was enlightened and still lived a life of a king. Very fascinating character.
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by sthitapragya »

Dontaskme wrote:
sthitapragya wrote:
Of course we still have to deal with the part where you have not given any proof of this theory, just made a proclamation which we are supposed to take for the eternal truth just because it came from you.
Proof is for those who are in doubt.

There is one thing certain beyond all reasonable doubt and that is that you are aware, alive right now....the rest is history. Make what ever story you want of it, it's your dream.

As for living out in a cave for the rest of eternity, sod that I'm enjoying the circus too much.



.
I have more doubts about your own conviction in your theory than I have in your theory. There is nothing in your own behaviour which suggests you have the slightest conviction in it. You have a lot of excuses but the fact is that the only way to experience oneness is to try it in all the extreme conditions of life. You are mouthing proclamations without any authority. You have not shown any ability of messiah or made one of your illusions disappear or in any way shown that your theory is true. You are a nobody who wants people to accept your word without questions. You need to prove to me that your theory is true when it is obvious that I have rejected it and have no interest in it. Why do you need to prove me wrong and yourself right?

For a person who believes in oneness, your actions prove that you don't believe in it. So how can I?
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dontaskme wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Dontaskme wrote: No one is enlightened.

Enlightenment means to not exist as a separate entity.
Rubbish. Enlightenment means to be aware. There is no separate entity, nor could their be. Knowing THAT is to be enlightened as to your position in the universe and not be led by the false idols of religion and spirituality.
To be aware and not exist as a separate entity are the same idea. Stop right there before you get tangled up in your own delusions.

Can you separate yourself from that which is aware and the object you are aware of? if so explain how...
Run back to primary school for a primer in basic reading.
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dontaskme wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:Spirituality is just another false idol.

I can experience the joy of life and nature without reference to false concepts. And I can do that more authentically.

When my heart leaps with joy at seeing my dog find a scent and start wagging her tail furiously looking back up at me to tell me how clever she is whilst the wind is blowing the scent of the sea across my nose and the sun is glinting off those distant waves, scudding clouds reflected in the surface and casting shadows across the green ocean of wheat clear through to the white cliff of the Seven Sisters - What good to me is the concept of "spirituality" that inward looking, mean, satisfied, limiting abstraction?
You have no idea what you are talking about.

Spirituality is also concept, it does not exist. The reason we look in is to see what's looking duh! find out what's looking before you can claim there is anything to look at.

There is no my this, or my that...except a mentally constructed idea.?
I'm glad you think so, now I can just ignore "YOUR' post because it does not exist.
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Dontaskme wrote: Your missing the point. And yes, it does seem like I am only arguing with myself, and that's basically true, everyone is talking to themselves in reality, any sound heard can only ever be an echo of their own voice. Direct hearing is 'embodied awareness', no conceptual explanation needed to realise 'this' only simply listening.
This is an example of EXACTLY what I mean when I described spirituality thus;"What good to me is the concept of "spirituality" that inward looking, mean, satisfied, limiting abstraction?"

What an arrogant overbearing self satisfied twat!!1
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Re: How did spirituality, belief in God and the continuing search for God change you?

Post by Lacewing »

sthitapragya wrote:Krishna has always been considered the most charismatic God in hinduism because he is the only one who was enlightened and still lived a life of a king. Very fascinating character.
I like that! Not because it's living the life of royalty... but because it seems to demonstrate that nothing is more important than anything else. We can experience anything... anywhere. Being enlightened or aware or spiritual does not require a god or a cave or a particular book or belief or credentials or a special hat. Those items might help focus one's own intention and understanding, but they are not required for everyone -- and those things in themselves indicate/ensure nothing at all. It's usually easy to see that the ones who insist on such requirements for everyone, are simply trying to validate and elevate themselves as the "knowers and distributers of supreme truth and salvation". It's a "trip"... and (I'm guessing) no trips are ultimately more important or valid than any others. The value is in the interactions and demonstrations of the moment, regardless of the trip itself.
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