Spirituality

by StinkyPantz 116 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  Not to be too academic about answering the question : What is spirituality, but........

  Here are my two cents. If not convincing I'll refund your coins!

  I think primitive man had primitive ideas, naturally, and tried his best to figure out what was happening and why.

  One of the things primitive man observed was the difference between something living and something dead. (I mean, besides the smell).

  A dead person stopped breathing! What was going in and out of a living person that went out and didn't come back from a dead person? Hmmmm, let's see now......I know! Breath. Air. Or, simply SPIRIT.

  From that concept all sorts of fanciful guesses, stories, myths and crackpot reasonings became attached and embellished.

  From that simple observation, I believe, the whole notion of invisible life force or ghosts or demons, or gods evolved. A primitive person must have been fascinated, puzzled and wowed by the fact you could FEEL the air but not see it. (That was before the city of Los Angeles).

  We get the idea of a Soul, mainly from such imaginings about the breath of a person.

  Fast forward. Modern times.

  People have been disgusted with formal religion for quite some time because of the wacky and hurtful things that come out of it. But, people are also very attached to the warm and fuzzy feeling of mental comfort that comes from having the rabbit's foot in the sky. So, they throw out the "formal" organized body of rules and rule-makers and cling to the barebones concept beneath it all. Which is what? Why the hidden part, of course!

  Mysticism thrives on hidden concepts and undefinable ideas and unprovable beliefs.

  Today a SPIRITUAL person is one who superstitiously insists on the power of the invisible to alter their life for good or ill. It is a fantasy and magic-thinking, naturally, but it has an emotional core to it and we all crave strong emotional feelings.

  Mostly we find people clinging to any old mystical notion that satisfies their "inner child" and brings them out of day to day life (which we all know is too REAL and a genuine drudge!).

  Some examples of mystical or Spiritual thinking are evident in catch phrases you hear people mention all the time. It imports MEANING and Destiny into ordinary events.

  1.Everything happens for a reason; nothing happens by chance.

  2.We all have a soul mate out there; we just have to be open to finding them.

  3.God has a plan for my life!

  4.There are no coincidences!

  5.Ohhhh, that's spooky; I wonder what that "MEANS"?

  6. I can't believe you called! I was just thinking about you!

  We have all heard these things. Superstitious people simply insist that somebody or something is in charge of the Universe and plots it out like an Agatha Christie novel.

  To me that is what it means to be SPIRITUAL. It is refusing to deal with reality by means of evidence, facts, knowledge or autonomy and it leads to vagueness, naivete and actions based on nothing more than coincidence or magic thinking.

  But, heck--don't listen to me. What do I know?

  Terry
• 

  JamesThomas

  The mind is a powerful tool, that can distinguish the meriod ripples and waves upon the ocean and discern them individually; wherein it loses the reality of the Ocean as a whole.
  
  Spirituality, God, Christ, Truth, Heaven, Nirvana, Buddha Mind, and the like, are all broken and convoluted words created by the mind in futile attempts of capturing the Wholeness unseen in the act of fragmenting. Catch 22.
  
  The biggest problem arises when the mind scoops up a bunch of pieces and molds them into a "me"; an identity from which is sees it's reflection in what it imagines as the rest of the divided universe. Here, enters suffering.
  
  There are ripples and there are waves, all afraid of death and dying; but more importantly -- there is only Ocean.
  
  
  
  
• 

  Markfromcali

  Ross: It's not to say to ignore the physical, but just that that's not it, nor is it a state of mind-body integration, which would be meaningless because it's not the mind either, not that mind. There's just as much confusion over that identification as there is with either one alone. There is the matter of not leaving anything out, but if a mind that is still identified champions that which it is identified with, whatever that is, then there is hardly a recognition of your true nature. That would just be the ego kind of tooting it's own horn. When there is a recognition of that essence in everyone, then there is love. Of course this isn't love in any sense of grasping or attachment, not to the body or the mind, but it does include both. So yes, you wouldn't want to leave out the body just as you wouldn't want to leave anything out, but this would not be out of attachment or polarizing extremes as in the case of someone that has neglected the body for a long time, even if it may be appropriate for them to work on the body for a while because of that. It's simply because love includes everything.
• 

  Markfromcali

  But, heck--don't listen to me. What do I know?

  Who or what is this me you speak of? Why should we listen to this abstract personal identity, I thought we were supposed to deal with facts? Is it about the facts or what a somebody 'knows?'
• 

  heathen

  LT --- obviously you weren't in the room even , that would be quite a snatch if you could reach through the computer and grab a literal pebble . LMAO

  I do agree with the fact that primitive man made many attempts to explain the strange universe we live in and just about made a God out of everything they could think of . I suppose we could go into the old argument of, did God create man or did man create God ?of which I would say both .
• 

  LittleToe

  Terry:
  This is at least the third post where you've asserted something as fact and then backpeddled with a take it or leave it disclaimer.
  For goodness sake, stand by what you say, else couch the post as being your opinion.

  Also, I take issue with your assertion that spirituality is failing to deal with reality.
  Have you walked a mile in those shoes?

  James:And so, all is one...

  Mark:Using a different concept, [Body, Spirit, and Soul], or better put [Physical, Spiritual, and Ego].
  Death to the ego!!!
  And yet, as one poster put it, even that has it's place when dealing with primative survival.

  Heathen:And yet here's the spooky bit that Terry would reject.
  I have the pebble right here...

  The question is, did you ever have it in the first place?
• 

  heathen

  LT --- maybe nothing is real , for all we know we are living in a matrix , wait a minute is that keanu reeves out front waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh .....