[Inhuman]

After going through the smut (though highly entertaining smut) on SYG, I think it would be interesting to discuss spirituality / evolving consciousness / God / Enlightenment.

For the past 6 months I've been reading a lot by Alan Watts, Tolle, sacred texts like the Gita and Pali Canon excerpts, Hesse, Terrence Mckenna and Robert Anton Wilson, and sometimes attend a Vedanta meditation center for Satsang. I just suddenly understood how both spirituality and religion is pragmatic and though often attacked, not something that's "bad" in nature like I used to think.

Where do you stand when it comes to spirituality / religion / evolving consciousness?

[knox]

I just feel like I should keep saying there is a big difference between spirituality and religion.

[Inhuman]

Yeah certainly. I included both because organized religion is one faculty within spirituality, and a very prominent one.

[gualbert]

I don't read authors from the "spirituality" trend.
The term induce that 'they' are talking about the spirit, and others don't.
Maybe they think Jesus, Socrates, Shakespeare (+litterature in general) were talking about how to grow vegetables or how to repair a fence!

[Inhuman]

Originally Posted by gualbert

I don't read authors from the "spirituality" trend.
The term induce that 'they' are talking about the spirit, and others don't.
Maybe they think Jesus, Socrates, Shakespeare (+litterature in general) were talking about how to grow vegetables or how to repair a fence!

The spirituality 'trend' really encompasses a wide array of writng however. It can be anywhere from sacred religious texts, to highly marketed new-age works like "The Secret", to drug use in relationship of self-exploration, to 2012 conspiracy. It's a broad subject that ideas from it can be borrowed in literature, just as romantic themes can be used in works that are not considered romance novels. Most things to be labeled as 'spirituality' are likely more a direct approach than symbolism through literature, though it all depends on personal preference on yr favorite method on how to extract that information

[gualbert]

Originally Posted by Inhuman

The spirituality 'trend' really encompasses a wide array of writng however. It can be anywhere from sacred religious texts, to highly marketed new-age works like "The Secret", to drug use in relationship of self-exploration, to 2012 conspiracy.

Agreed. It includes so many issues; too many imo.

Most things to be labeled as 'spirituality' are likely more a direct approach than symbolism through literature, though it all depends on personal preference on yr favorite method on how to extract that information

I don't want to "extract information" when I read a novel.
Symbolism, or personnal experience (sic), is fine to me.

[knox]

Originally Posted by Inhuman

Yeah certainly. I included both because organized religion is one faculty within spirituality, and a very prominent one.

I suppose I get what you mean, but being involved in a religion often has more to do with a cultural aspect than anything to do with being spiritualized. On the other hand, one could argue spirituality is everywhere, and it's just an instinct we're born with. I can't help but see the institution of any church as something almost completely apart from spirituality, which I consider extremely personal and perhaps impossible to share.

[pbradley]

My spirituality is entirely passive and silent. I let it come to me and I tell no one.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Inhuman

After going through the smut (though highly entertaining smut) on SYG, I think it would be interesting to discuss spirituality / evolving consciousness / God / Enlightenment.

For the past 6 months I've been reading a lot by Alan Watts, Tolle, sacred texts like the Gita and Pali Canon excerpts, Hesse, Terrence Mckenna and Robert Anton Wilson, and sometimes attend a Vedanta meditation center for Satsang. I just suddenly understood how both spirituality and religion is pragmatic and though often attacked, not something that's "bad" in nature like I used to think.

Where do you stand when it comes to spirituality / religion / evolving consciousness?

I also read a lot of Alan Watts in my 20s. Later found he was a major rascal when it came to his personal dealings, so that was a big letdown (he also had problems with alcohol). Still, his popularizations of Taoism were highly interesting, though he got Zen more or less wrong (he's been rebutted by various real-deal Zen masters). Still, I like the Tao Te Ching best and Chuang-Tzu, who is brilliant and hilarious-- the quality translations are important.

Tolle is a kind of Zen-related too ("be fully in the moment"), and a good Westernized approach I supposed without getting into byzantine explanations.

The Gita cracked me up because it is used to justify war-- basically, Kirshna says to Arjuna "You can't really kill your cousins, so kill them!". I've read also the Yoga Sutra but never the Pali canon-- might try some day.

From Terrence McKenna I read "Food of the Gods" about a decade or more ago, and I feel he continues the line that Aldous Huxley started in Heaven and Hell/ The Doors of Perception -- interesting book, haven't read others.

Hesse blew my mind when I was 18 or 19, particularly Demian and Steppenwolf, the Glass Bead game bored me before I could finish, but I loved some of his essays. I don't know if I could read those Hesse again, it's one of those things like trying to get back with your first girlfriend and realizing there was a reason why you two broke up.

Hesse's major wellspring is I believe Carl Jung, who was a bigger mystic and thinker than him, but not a novelist. Still, I hear Jung's autobiography was pretty good and I might look for it at some point.

I only read RAW recently and it came across more as a comedic writer than as a philosopher, though clearly the guy was smart as fuck. Still, being already familiar with a lot of what he talks about made it less mind-blowing than if I had read this when I was 18. It would have had a different effect.

RE: Evolving consciousness, etc: I'm skeptical, very skeptical, when it comes to such claims. I've seen WAY TOO MANY charlatans to trust anybody who claims to have found the secret of life (or whatever) and I tend to side with the views found on Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" with one very big difference-- I don't find a godless universe necessarily leads to nihilism (which is what Monty Python sort of goes after); I think one can find supreme value in life even when said life has no meaning or god or any of that. Does that make me a Nietzschean? An existentialist? I have no fucking idea.

These days I'm interested in Zen and its practice, not because I believe it will lead me anywhere, but simply because I'm interested in the skills it provides to the mind. Whatever happens from acquiring said skills (or "un-skills" if you wanna buy the concept of beginner's mind) I have no idea of what it is or where it leads to. But I find that doing zazen is good for my brain. I'm not interested in enlightenment, nirvana (of any kind), or saving all sentient beings quite yet.

By the way, if you are highly religious or have religious inclinations or rely on some sort of divinity for your life's meaning, beware of reading Nietzsche-- it can make you temporarily mad.

[dale_gribble]

Originally Posted by Inhuman

After going through the smut (though highly entertaining smut) on SYG, I think it would be interesting to discuss spirituality / evolving consciousness / God / Enlightenment.

For the past 6 months I've been reading a lot by Alan Watts, Tolle, sacred texts like the Gita and Pali Canon excerpts, Hesse, Terrence Mckenna and Robert Anton Wilson, and sometimes attend a Vedanta meditation center for Satsang. I just suddenly understood how both spirituality and religion is pragmatic and though often attacked, not something that's "bad" in nature like I used to think.

Where do you stand when it comes to spirituality / religion / evolving consciousness?

you ever read 2012 the return of quetzalcoatl?

[ann ashtray]

Spirituality often times just refers to the religious that prefer to not associate themselves with any specific religious organization....wether it be Buddhism, Catholicism (which is the oldest form of Christianity, so all denominations fall under it as far as I'm concerned), paganism, pretty much anything else. It still requires faith in something that can not be proven. The "proof" often spoken about by the spiritual is often more so a personal "feeling" that can be described as being any large number of things, being that it can not be proven.

People often forget "religion" just means "belief"...the word doesn't apply to just so called "organized religion". The "spiritual" that choose to not associate themselves with whatever given organized religion (for whatever reason) are just opting to follow their own beliefs on the subject matter...but still, it all falls under the same thing and there's no real way around it. Believing, having faith, in that of which can't be proven has no place in my life...I have no real issues w/ those of any faith, as long as they can keep it where it belongs...which is not in science, politics, etc. Most fail at this.

****And YES, I am saying that if you claim to be spiritual you are still religious. You don't have to be a Baptist in order to be religious.

[Glice]

Some of you may know that I happen to be fairly well-versed in this subject. As such, I'm keeping my trap shut, but also quietly tutting to myself. Someone draw me in with something with teeth.

[Glice]

Oh, also, isn't the Pali canon utterly inapproachable within one lifetime?

[space]

tonite, The Universe brought me gifts in the form of a three book series on the construction of earthships.

dreams made real.

my totems are the coyote and the crow.

I hope this helps.

[space]

Coyote traveled through the country, fighting monsters and making the world ready for the new people. He crossed the Cascade Mountains and came into the Puget Sound country. He was hungry, very hungry.

He saw Crow sitting on the peak of a high cliff, with a ball of deer fat in his mouth. Coyote looked at Crow with this fat and thought how good it would taste. Becoming hungrier and hungrier, he wondered how he could get the fat for himself. He thought hard. Then he laughed.

"I know what to do. I know how I can get the fat from Crow."

Then coyote came close to the base of the cliff and called. "Oh, Chief! I hear that you can make a good noise, a pleasing noise with your voice. You are a big chief, I know. You are a wise chief, I have heard. Let me hear your voice, Chief. I want to hear you, Chief Crow."

Crow was pleased to be called chief. So he answered, "Caw!"

"Oh, Chief Crow," called Coyote, "that wasn't much. You can sing better than that. Sing a good song for me, Chief. I want to hear you sing loud."

Crow was pleased again. So he opened his mouth wide and called from the cliff in a loud voice, "C-a-a-w!"

Of course the ball of deer fat fell down from Crow's open mouth.

Coyote grabbed it quickly. Then he laughed.

"You are not a wise chief," said Coyote. "you are not a chief at all. I called you 'Chief' just to fool you. I wanted your deer fat. I am hungry. Now you can go hungry because of your foolishness."

[ann ashtray]

Sometimes it isn't so much a question as to what to believe in, it's who to blame for what you believe. + then considering and reconsidering until??????(something happens)?????

[krischanski]

Something always happens. God won't.

[Rob Instigator]

Humans need constant assurance that they are not A) reponsible for anything and B) that no matter how meaningless and arbitrary existence seems, it "really" is not.

[space]

yr sour outlooks manifest in yr reality.

I'm so terribly sorry.

great pity.

[EVOLghost]

I believe in Sonic Love.