Markfromcali
JoinedTopics Started by Markfromcali
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Religion and intrinsic goodness
by Markfromcali inokay, maybe goodness isn't the best word, but i wanted to talk about the idea of spirituality as something intrinsic and internal rather than something we seek 'out there.
' religion is of course supposed to be a vehicle for spirituality, so given the above premise the question is does it bring you back to that intrinsic spirituality or does it take you 'out' to some way of believing or behaving?
it reminds me of the movie fight club where they go steal human fat from a lipsuction clinic to make soap, and at the department store where they are selling the soap for something like $20 a bar the narrator goes: "it was beautiful, we were selling rich women their fat asses back to them.
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Peace as a state, or permanent trait/structure
by Markfromcali inokay, here's one for those of you interested in consciousness and such, or maybe those who happen to find it interesting at the moment.
if not of course you are free to click away and return to your regularly scheduled programming.
i was reading some ken wilber and was thinking of the point about different stages of development, that different consciousness can be a temporary state, an experience or basically a stable structure of consciousness.
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Spirituality as affirmation of life & implications re JWs & the like
by Markfromcali inat the socal fest i was talking to 4jwy and her hubby, and he made a point about doing something well which got me to think about this.
there is such an emphasis on the new system and being no part of the world with the jws that you effectively have a denial of life, certainly life as it is now today.
even if you believe in the new system, it would be rather like not giving first-aid or cpr because the doctor is the one that will fix it.
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Development of consciousness
by Markfromcali ini have only one simple point in this post, but it comes out of several threads that i've read recently - including the evolution of humanity, existential/spiritual pathologies, and marital infidelity threads.
the observation i am making is that consciousness does appear to move toward wholeness and union.
in one sense it appears there are lots of divisiveness in the world, but on the other hand it is all already connected by cause and effect, mutual interdependence and interaction.
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Existential Pathology ...
by Markfromcali ini was reading the book transformations of consciousness - conventional and contemplative perspectives on development by wilber, engler and brown (which is an older book) this morning and came across this bit which i thought may be of interest.
this chapter by wilber is outlined in three general stages of development of prepersonal, personal and transpersonal, with three sub-stages or fulcrums under each of these, and this paragraph is from the third and last in the personal stage:the "existential level," as i use the term here, refers to a specific level of basic structure development ("vision-logic") and the correlative stage of self-development ("centaur".
) it is termed "existential" for three reasons: 1) if the formal-reflexive mind is descartes, the existential mind is heidegger: his whole philosophy is marvelously saturated with this level of consciousness (as an actual discovery, not as merely subjective fabrication); 2) the self-structure of this level, as broughton (1975) demonstrated, is one where "mind and body are both experiences of an integrated self.
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Bethel lyrics to the tune of YMCA
by Markfromcali inok this is mostly just a concept, but doesn't that song lend itself to a version about serving at bethel?
"it's fun to serve at the brooklyn bethel.." i don't have hardly anything, but maybe the last part:.
you can get yourself clean.
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Timelessness
by Markfromcali infor those who have seen the star trek: insurrection movie, remember that line where picard was talking to that woman (anij?
) about this time stopping thing, sort of being in the moment special effect portrayed as everything being really slow?
and she said "it took us hundreds of years to learn that it doesn't take hundred of years to learn.
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positive reinforcements to see the truth about the truth
by Markfromcali inokay, reinforcement isn't really the right word, probably more like re-examination or something - but the point is to emphasize positively what someone already knows, on some level.
it seems the jw experience has been such a negative one that this approach is rarely considered, so how about entertaining the idea to start?
i'm sure this could be a little vague but someone out there may be able to word it better.
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Is it true, or just familiar?
by Markfromcali inthis is a simple enough comparison, but i think it's a question worth asking with a thread of it's own, even if it's just for the sake of reminder.
whether it's believing the jws or anything, do we notice whether it is what's reasonable and makes sense, or is it just 'agreeable' because it's familiar and comfortable?
obviously the latter wouldn't be a wise choice.