Science's Spirituality: Mysticism

I guess there's nothing I can say that will convince you that my existence isn't agonising, tedious and oppressive, now that you've brought denial into the equation, right?

 

The essence of a separative existence is always agonizing, yes. However, it's certainly possible to be identified with an ego and achieve gratification and a sense of well-being through dependency on external conditions such as co-dependent relationships and escapist sensory stimulation. The problem with this approach is that due to the impermanent nature of the material world, the gratification is always fleeting, and must always be counterbalanced by periods of despondency and discontent.

So to answer you question more directly, no, you could easily convince me that your immediate experience isn't characterized by any of the aforementioned negative states of being. At the same time, I would pose a question to you: Do you aspire to realize greater forms of well-being and happiness than your life has provided you with thus far, or are you content with the status quo?

Travis

 

At the moment, I'm pretty content, yeah. There's a few things I'd change but the main reason they haven't changed is because I'm a lazy git, and it'd be rather churlish of me to blame it on my non-transcendent state of being when it's totally within my power as I am now to do something about it.

 

radar

No. because life is not logical.
Sometimes it's really great to be alone.
Sometimes being alone is a torment.

Unfortunately reality says all humans are islands.. and physically this is pretty much correct.
Much of human literature and striving is trying to connect with others.
A worthy thing indeed.

As one said 'Life is love'
No, love is love
Life is made bearable to many humans by love.

Occam

 

Separative existence has nothing to do with being alone physically. One can be isolated and immersed in universal consciousness and therefore fulfilled, and one can be socially active and people-oriented but interpreting the interpersonal experience through the perceptual filters of the illusory separative identity, thus producing suffering. And of course, this phenomenon applies conversely as well.

You may someday discover that the love you feel for others is actually completely internalized. When you realize that love as being omnipresent, completely independent of the presence of loved ones, the illusion of separation will have been transcended.

Travis

 

Travis

Disagree, the seperation is not illusory. It is existant.
The suffering is real, and a result of that existant seperation.
I have held a dying child in my arms...there is no thing i would not
have given to take her to a better place or make her part of me so she could be free.
She has ceased to exist for many years now. forgotten by all but myself.
i still cry at night for her.
Is that illusory as well.

occam

 

I am sorry for your suffering and loss. If you are asking whether or not that suffering and loss is illusory, then yes, it most certainly is.

Travis

 

Travis


How so?
I reason therefore i am. And the loss is part of 'i am'
Therfore the loss is part of thought and thought cannot be denied by thinker.
illusory?
only if the thinker is illusory..

occam

'All is illusion'?. There is no universal consciousness. there is just reality.
Conciousness cannot be the thing that allows it.

 

i agree with the thread starter. i am a Buddhist and a spiritual nihilist. i dont agree that a spiritual experience confirms god. i had the same experience as the mystic Jews had and there was no god, there was just unfiltered reality. god is a faulty concept. i am a Yogacara Buddhist, which means i am a practitioner of yoga to become awake, so yes you can be a spiritual atheist. Most atheist i know are more spiritual than most religous people i know cause they try to find out the truth of reality for themselves instead of thinking that their is a god and it knows the answers so why do i need to look. Once you believe in god you give up the search for truth.

 

is it not possible to believe in a god that is at least slightly synoymous with this search?

 

^ of course but you can never become enlightened while believing in a god cause that is a delusion and enlightenment is freedom from all delusion. Buddha taught nothing on god cause if you have any concepts on the subject than you are mistaken and it takes you away from right view which is seeing life as it is, not as you think it is.

 

i tip my hat to you, sir.

 

Or, seeing life as the Buddha said you should? Come on thats a weak argument samsara. A concept of God is there for a reason, you can call it attachment or you can call it a push in the right direction, but that doesnt automatically make one view or the 'right view', right. They are just views, and I would imagine that God is trancendental to views. But there I go, always using my dirty, unpure, fear filled attached mind again
It's like the blossoms in the sky XD

 

i think when he said right view, he was talking about viewing without conceptualizing. can't do that and have beliefs at the same time.

 

I know what he meant friend, but how is a Buddhist belief in reincarnation any different than a person's belief in God? I mean Im not doubting either, but I have only direct experience with God, and not with the spiritual mechanics reincarnation and it's absurd to assume that a Buddhists way of right viewing is in anyway more proper or enlightening than any other honest persons opinion on viewing just because they say it is or a book says it is. And by God, please dont take the position of the sky daddy, I mean in reality I've met maybe 5 people in my life with such a limited belief of God and they were children. Nor the judgemental God. But what Im getting at, is what if you take this sort of approach to what you might believe to be a means of attaining moksha, and all the while maintain a overall sensation that this enlightenment is preparing you to merge into God, whatever God is, without forming opinions on God's law and conjuring up mental pictures of how God is, how God will deal with you, why God created, etc. but just a pure sense of a trancendental connection? I can hardly see how that would inihit a path to enlightenment. A belief in God is no more different than a belief in enlightenment, you cant come to either without turning around and experiencing for what they are and truly I feel they are the same thing.

 

I just wanted to add real quick, that that post came off in a way I did not mean it to but whatever lol. Im not entirley ignorant to the Buddha's teaching, Ive read the Surangama Sutra and few others and have read where he states that even his teachings defeat the purpose but in essence you have to start somewhere, and Ive never seen him dispute God existing in my reading experience. And I do agree, a belief in what God is limits what God is and is therefor a limitation on a search for negating the mind in order to arrive at the positivity of mind essence. But at the same time, the kind of trancendental connection Im talking about is not exactly the same, though it is a belief, just like the belief in enlightenment. I hope that clears up my stance on tha matter some.
Namaste

 

Enlightenment is a fact discovered by the scientific wisdom of yoga and tantra. Unlike objective science which is latin for knowledge this is a subjective science of wisdom. In science if you do certain activities and get the same result over and over it is a fact. Many have claimed this to be true and in the Zen tradition they are even tested for authenticity to be a Zen Master. As for reincarnation lets compare it to how Christians believe the earth was created in 6 days, how many Christians do you think really believe that? Now for reincarnation its kind of the same thing except im sure many more believe its true. Reincarnation is like Karma just a fancy word to help the majority understand. Karma is a fancy word for the law of cause and effect. Reincarnation is for the people who do not know what they are on the deepest level and think they are their limited mind with their limited personality. What we really are is consciousness and after you die your not dead because consciousness still exists, reincarnation and all afterlife stories are for the ones who identify with their brainwashed minds thinking they are an individual and have an individual personality when they are just the product of their enviroment. And a question RELAYER if god is one how can there be a god. Why not call it reality.

 

Why not call it 'this' or 'now' ?

 

So is God last time I checked, though it's much easier to access and does not require the daily rituals such as tantra and sadhana. It's as easy as falling in love.

I know what science is and Im not doubting the authenticity of meditative states that do not include conceptualization and the manifestation of thought. What I am doubting is that the total sensation of connection to God blocks the soul from being liberated.

Karma I can accept as a foundation for an attempt at human comprehension of the spiritual mechanics of Nature, or the blueprint left for us to unravel, which obviously is all enclusive. Reincarnation however is as much as a guess as angels or even the creation of what you call reality, because it requires the dancing of mental thought. Im not saying that I doubt reincarnation either, it's not up to me to decide such a thing, but I am saying that it is a belief that has no basis in what you call reality unless you can touch your own experience of it, which I have not done, at least not yet.
As for your question, I never said that God was not reality and really who cares what I decide to call it? Does that automatically put me in a position to explain the totality of what Ive come to understand? Which is actually not much lol. Yes God is one and so are you, why then do you have to practice yoga to become one? For the same reason I call God by that name.
Namaste

 

i practice yoga and tantra to unbrainwash myself, and that is the goal of Buddhism. we are all brainwashed, some more than others and about different stuff and the only ones who arent are Buddhas. Unbrainwashed=Right View. It is the beginning and end of Buddhism.