Religion.

oh i know you didnt mean to, and i didnt take it that way

 

My mistake...

 

Hari Om!
Thank you for the kynd words guys, I truly do not deserve them! haha But I do love sharing what I come to terms with every passing day.
Nesta, regarding how my position in God consciousness is hard to pin down, trust me, no one is more confused than I! I was having a conversation with Iliana the other night, after watching a video on psychedelic shamanism (utylizing DMT) and we were sharing opinions on what we agreed with and disagreed with regarding the shaman's opinions on western societies inability to comprehend psychedelic nature, because of our lack of traditional approach to the 'sacraments'. The thing is, that while I think it noble to be able to commune with spirits and plant sources in order to heal and guide, I do not think that this is what one should finalize as spirituality, nor do I believe that traditional approaches to enlightenment bring any positive change, on the contrary, I believe that subscribing to a clique or a formulation based on the fragmentation of the whole Essence of Mind is putting a limitation on ones potential universal connection.
When I come off as a Hare Krsna, it is because I have been reading the Bhagavad Gita in the recent past, or speaking with devotees. If I come off as a radical Christian is because I have been meditating on the Christ Conciousness, if Mulsim because of the Hadith and the Qu'ran, and son on.
During the conversation between Iliana and I, I came to a MOST profound realization, a perfect understanding, a simple and beautiful comprehension and the Buddha within the Surangama Sutra explained this thousands of years ago, and though I have read it many times, I have never really been able to put His message into practice.
Essentially what He says, is that every thought we have is as insubstantial and empty as the heart of a reed, which also applies to all the result of thought, ie the Multiverses. It is all empty, it is all a byproduct of maya and it is all worthless and confusing.
When I have my opinion that my esoteric understanding of what God is, is more accurate than the next guys, who am I kidding other than myself? During this conversation we had, it was like a bright light turned on in my being. Every opinion, every though, every accumulated spiritual and mystical and magical experience I had ever had, vanished in an instant. I realized that even when I was meditating I was never reaching any true samadhi because though I was disconnecting my sense mind from the sense organs and the thought from the collective universal mind Essence, I was still subconsciously holding onto some kind of HOPE that God was personal and I was personal with Her, that there is continuation of my and all souls and that there is a form of Heaven. Though it was never on the forefront of my consciousness, I rooted it out and found that it was most definitley burried way back in there.
I found that Heaven is somewhere I can go right now, Im already there, but true happyness, true bliss and true samadhi or Sat Chit Ananda, is the state of absolutley no personal existance, no ego, opinions, thoughts, judgements, hopes or expectations. It is a state of turning off everything, the Kingdom of Heaven within us is only attained when we stop trying to attain it! When we simply look and have no mental image constructed of what we are looking at, we truly 'see', and that is enlightenment, heaven, God consciousness, whatever. The silence of thought has been the hardest part of my ego to shed but I feel that it has finally happened.
I still love my Krsna, my Christ, my Mohammed and my Buddha, but they are not teachers in truth they are only temporary keys to the door that we must each walk through and explore alone.
And God, She is still smiling because I have taken away any seperation between my understanding of Her and the next persons. She is us and beyond us, beyond the Mind Essence and beyond the nothing or the void.
Ive finally been broken down enough to understand that I can not understand God, at all, if this makes any sense
NAMASTE everyone and happy valentines day!
Much love and good health to you all and may God bless each and every one of you~

 

haha!
Guys, this is Relayer, I just realized Im typing under Ilianas screen name :tongue:
namaste!

 

Hari Om!
Thank you for the kynd words guys, I truly do not deserve them! haha But I do love sharing what I come to terms with every passing day.
Nesta, regarding how my position in God consciousness is hard to pin down, trust me, no one is more confused than I! I was having a conversation with Iliana the other night, after watching a video on psychedelic shamanism (utylizing DMT) and we were sharing opinions on what we agreed with and disagreed with regarding the shaman's opinions on western societies inability to comprehend psychedelic nature, because of our lack of traditional approach to the 'sacraments'. The thing is, that while I think it noble to be able to commune with spirits and plant sources in order to heal and guide, I do not think that this is what one should finalize as spirituality, nor do I believe that traditional approaches to enlightenment bring any positive change, on the contrary, I believe that subscribing to a clique or a formulation based on the fragmentation of the whole Essence of Mind is putting a limitation on ones potential universal connection.
When I come off as a Hare Krsna, it is because I have been reading the Bhagavad Gita in the recent past, or speaking with devotees. If I come off as a radical Christian is because I have been meditating on the Christ Conciousness, if Mulsim because of the Hadith and the Qu'ran, and son on.
During the conversation between Iliana and I, I came to a MOST profound realization, a perfect understanding, a simple and beautiful comprehension and the Buddha within the Surangama Sutra explained this thousands of years ago, and though I have read it many times, I have never really been able to put His message into practice.
Essentially what He says, is that every thought we have is as insubstantial and empty as the heart of a reed, which also applies to all the result of thought, ie the Multiverses. It is all empty, it is all a byproduct of maya and it is all worthless and confusing.
When I have my opinion that my esoteric understanding of what God is, is more accurate than the next guys, who am I kidding other than myself? During this conversation we had, it was like a bright light turned on in my being. Every opinion, every though, every accumulated spiritual and mystical and magical experience I had ever had, vanished in an instant. I realized that even when I was meditating I was never reaching any true samadhi because though I was disconnecting my sense mind from the sense organs and the thought from the collective universal mind Essence, I was still subconsciously holding onto some kind of HOPE that God was personal and I was personal with Her, that there is continuation of my and all souls and that there is a form of Heaven. Though it was never on the forefront of my consciousness, I rooted it out and found that it was most definitley burried way back in there.
I found that Heaven is somewhere I can go right now, Im already there, but true happyness, true bliss and true samadhi or Sat Chit Ananda, is the state of absolutley no personal existance, no ego, opinions, thoughts, judgements, hopes or expectations. It is a state of turning off everything, the Kingdom of Heaven within us is only attained when we stop trying to attain it! When we simply look and have no mental image constructed of what we are looking at, we truly 'see', and that is enlightenment, heaven, God consciousness, whatever. The silence of thought has been the hardest part of my ego to shed but I feel that it has finally happened.
I still love my Krsna, my Christ, my Mohammed and my Buddha, but they are not teachers in truth they are only temporary keys to the door that we must each walk through and explore alone.
And God, She is still smiling because I have taken away any seperation between my understanding of Her and the next persons. She is us and beyond us, beyond the Mind Essence and beyond the nothing or the void.
Ive finally been broken down enough to understand that I can not understand God, at all, if this makes any sense
NAMASTE everyone and happy valentines day!
Much love and good health to you all and may God bless each and every one of you~

 

I am an atheist. But I totally agree with who said that, sometimes psychadelics can make me think if it's really possible that everything just happend by chance? If our planet, the life on it and everything is just meaningless and has no particular reason of being there?


Could all this be meaningless? this planet... this universe...
Is this reality meaningless?
Hell I cant even define reality? what the hell is reality? what's beyond reality? what's the universe? is it infinite? what's the meaning fo infinite? it must end somewhere I mean.

sometimes just by looking at my hand I think.... how the hell?
even the smallest things if analized in details can be mind blowing..
maybe there's a slight possibility of some kinda of force that created everything..I dunno.

Ofc I dont believe in any of the man made religions though.

eh... I think our minds are not powerful enough to truely comprehend the answer to all of this.

 

when you say maya - is that another translation of mara or an i uneducated here?

i agree witht pretty much all you said to an extent....

i dont understand what i believe, but i believe joyfully regardless. i have little written in stone, that is for sure. what i described is a generalized basic approach i take....the current manifestation of my thoughts on the subject.

and i would like to clarify on using the term "radical" christian...i'm sure you know it, but i didnt mean it like most of the time you hear the term radical christian....just very seperate from the mainstream, a radical who is a christian....

 

and i have to agree that life and existance, at least for all practical purposes, is meaningless. and its honestly more amazing that way, i think...there is meaning in that with no meaning

 

Oh yea I totally got what you meant, in fact I kind of like the label being applied to myself but I should quit with my ego stroking while Im ahead :tongue:
BTW, Maya is a sanskrit word reffering to the screen of illusion that seperates spirit from consciousness, known in the West as Mother Nature's condensation of thought, or gross matter, the universe, etc.
Maya is the illusion that everyone temporary is breaking through when they trip and say "It feels like I could see past all the BS and truly get whats going on"
Maya is like, basically illusion, the devil, being blind to God and being attached to phsycial body and comforts, you know, that kind of thing.
Im sure you got it by my first sentence but I just try and clarify all the time! Maya is illusion, pure and simple, and according to the Veda's, all thoughts are trapped in maya and only the soul, when liberated from the prison of the mind, is free of maya

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_(demon) see i was thinking of a general pseudo-demon of tempting illusion and deception....sort of related i guess....but i suppose maya is more abstract, a state of being, whereas mara is both abstract and a literally existing entity...?

 

Skandha-mara seems to be just the same concept Nesta! I guess the Buddhists and the Hindu's have broken down the levels of cosmic delusion in much the same manner
Actually the Sufi's sect of Islam is VERY similar to the more esoteric religions, they have some very beautiful descriptions of God's creation as well, I should get more into that in the future, I was thinking of tackling the Khabbala next but Im not so sure Im ready to decipher that just yet.

 

I don't entirely agree that life is meaningless. It's only as meaningless as we allow it to become but we are here for a reason... there's some facet of spiritual maturity- be it the ability to remain true to yourself through all manner of distraction or to gain as a spiritual entity a level of empathy with pain, anguish, depression- the entire dark spectrum of sensory and emotional experience that we can only get as flesh and blood.

The more I think about religion as I've been made to understand it as well as my experience attending church growing up- the more I'm convinced that, if a particular faith doesn't miss the point, those who hijack it and manipulate it for less than spiritual reasons do. The Christian concepts of commandments and behavior specifics strike me as particularly preposterous in the face of innocent human suffering. Many who devoutly follow a particular denomination would have me believe that children in a third world country deserve their famine and disease because they follow a false god.

On reviewing the poll options I do not see one that quite describes my stance on the subject. I suppose "other religion" comes close but I hate to use the term "religion", which carries many connotations and interpretive baggage, to characterize what I believe. I'm not sure I can express it myself.

 

i believe that i dont have all the answers, and i never will. if there is a god, i believe in him, if there isnt, oh well its not like i missed out on anything.

but as for religion? it is the scourge of humanity

 

i dont think i mentioned this, so for the record i checked "i believe in many gods."

while i dont have a set standard theology, no picture of the whole of the divine....unlike the christian church with its many names and categories of gods ("the" god and all his angels and saints, and all the demons and other various creatures, natural, preternatural, and/or supernatural)

but while "other religion" may suit me well, and while most of what i consider to be divine or godly many would dispute, i felt the best answer for me was "i believe in many gods"

its not that i know how many there are, or know who they all are, or even believe that they necessarily exist without us believing in them...i'm open to many possibilities, but i believe they are out there in some way, shape, or form. and i believe that while it may or may not hold any sway in the unfolding of the events of the world we live in, a spiritual life is generally beneficial to one's psyche if not their soul.

 

heheh jedi religion... i used to try force choke on ppl, and trying to move objects by concetrating... phailed. now i believe i can fly!

 

heh, i secretly wish i could change my answer to jedi


i did the same thing as a kid....

 

OK, here's how I came to it. When 5 years old or so I didn't believe in the Church's kinda God, for looking at them believers I couldn't make it out what their god served them for. How come, reasoned I, the world is so damn bad and their god feels OK about it, and them trying to feel OK about the whole thing, too. You can't believe you come into the world to suffer with all your senses telling you came here to enjoy and be happy! Funny thing, even bodily disabled people feel this!
...
Then at 15-16 I realized there had to be God, only I had to dig for it myself, for the adults were of no practical help.
So, this God, if he existed, had to be able to make it clear about everything that's unclear, but in such way that would make one happy. I mean I couldn't take things like "well you know we humans are wicked but that's what we are so just take it easy and try to be happy with that". Someone out there had to explain it to me, just if we really were so wicked and nothing strange about it, then why should that "normal thing" make us so unhappy! If God can't make me happy, figured I , I can but do without one. But then again, you know, when you see the beauty and love and happiness of the Creation, you can't help but believe there IS a LOVING God out there.

Tried buddhism, zen-budhism -- but these don't give you answers about God; they give you answers about your mind and consciousness, and it is just not essential with buddhism whether God exists or not. And that will strike you with the understanding that, if it is "only yourself", then you can't help at all about the damn situation in the world. Definitely, not very positive; plaintext it is kinda saying "you're being given this life only to show you that life is no good thing at all". Now if life is NOT, then what IS?

So I found the truth in Christianity as preached by Jehovah's Witnesses, for whom the ultimate authority is the Bible together with common sense -- no "church dogma". With that presentation the truth flashes forth and strikes you as the only 100% logical explanation of everything. Now there is NO question I cannot find satisfying answer with the help of the Bible. Got firm ground for positivism with the Bible-based Christianity of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Of course, I presume, if you are looking for God you must be ready to accept his terms when you find him. So, the Bible kind of God is such, that accepting His terms really makes you happy. And don't you think that, if He is your Creator, he MUST be capable of making you happy and satisfied with all the multitudes of questions and anxieties?

 

I'm not at all "religious", but I am spiritual. In a way I'm an existentialist, but I do believe in a God, just not in the traditional sense. I don't think God is an all-powerful, all-knowing being that created everything. To me, God is a part everything and everyone, not distinct from it, and not personal.

I voted "other religion" in the poll because none of them really fit.

 

..

 

its like Nietzsche says "god is dead, we killed him"