Spirituality might work if it wasn't so stupid.

a reply to: theCheddar

Ah. I see the problem. You're egotistical.

You think your experiences are superior to others'.

Here's some news for you: Spirituality, religion, or the lack thereof is not a one-size-fits-all thing. You may think you've, "processed more of the world with eyes open than anyone staring at the back of their eyelids ever could," but in reality, you haven't processed a damn thing.

Edit: In fact, I'd go so far as to argue you really haven't processed anything until you've closed your eyes and seen the same thing from a different perspective.

No you don't see; you choose not to. You close your eyes, remember? You are absorbed in yourself—the definition of egotistical.

What haven't I processed? You keep claiming this and that, but show no reason why any of it should be listened to. Your "news" isn't anything but someone making authoritative claims based on no authority. I think you're proving my initial point.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: Stormdancer777

That depends. How long will you be superstitious towards them?

that wasn't specifically aimed at you, but people in general.

a reply to: Stormdancer777

that wasn't specifically aimed at you, but people in general.

Apologies.

To whom it may concern

My good friends what you may not understand is that spirituality is ultimately a personal thing


You can’t give your understanding and your light or your darkness to anyone as another cant give you their darkness or light…one has have their own ultimately


A child growing into puberty can’t explain that to a child who hasn’t grown into the experience yet what it is

You see what I mean

Or a grownup can’t explain the attainments of an adult to a child

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I don't see the need to continue this discussion... mostly because you see no need to accept others' viewpoints. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Superstitions evolved to help us survive
www.newscientist.com...

Evolutionary origin of religions
en.wikipedia.org...

Writing therefore enabled religions to develop coherent and comprehensive doctrinal systems that remained independent of time and place.[45] Writing also brought a measure of objectivity to human knowledge. Formulation of thoughts in words and the requirement for validation made mutual exchange of ideas and the sifting of generally acceptable from not acceptable ideas possible. The generally acceptable ideas became objective knowledge reflecting the continuously evolving framework of human awareness of reality that Karl Popper calls 'verisimilitude' – a stage on the human journey to truth.[46]

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

Evolutionary origins of human brain and spirituality. Henneberg M1, Saniotis A. Author information Abstract Evolving brains produce minds. Minds operate on imaginary entities. Thus they can create what does not exist in the physical world. Spirits can be deified. Perception of spiritual entities is emotional--organic. Spirituality is a part of culture while culture is an adaptive mechanism of human groups as it allows for technology and social organization to support survival and reproduction. Humans are not rational, they are emotional. Most of explanations of the world, offered by various cultures, involve an element of "fiat", a will of a higher spiritual being, or a reference to some ideal. From this the rules of behaviour are deduced. These rules are necessary to maintain social peace and allow a complex unit consisting of individuals of both sexes and all ages to function in a way ensuring their reproductive success and thus survival. There is thus a direct biological benefit of complex ideological superstructure of culture. This complex superstructure most often takes a form of religion in which logic is mixed with appeals to emotions based on images of spiritual beings. God is a consequence of natural evolution. Whether a deity is a cause of this evolution is difficult to discover, but existence of a deity cannot be questioned.

Are spirituality, religion and superstition, still necessary for the brain to evolve?

Forget the word spirituality. It’s just a word for people that describe a general state of religiosity or metaphysical endeavor


Real spirituality is merely cleaning the mirror of the inner eye so one can see reality as it is.


There are no magic tricks and jumping around in circles and dancing cumbaya songs


All those things in their right perspective are only psychological tools to assist people in change



Jalaludin Rumi created the famous Whirling dervish exercises not as any deep magical or spiritual activity but he initiated it because the people in Konya were too phlegmatic in nature to mild mannered. The dance opened them up to things psychologically not anything particularly mysterious.


Later they made an idol out of the actively and commercialized it…they “spiritualized” it and now it only has value as an entertainment


There's a time and place for everything

When its time is up

Its out of place!

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Our emotional relationship with the world is a physical one, not a spiritual one. Relationship entails two or more objects in relation to each other. What, if anything, is spiritual about that? What needs to be spiritual about that? Nothing.

not purely. is there any particular reason you choose one road over another on your way across town? maybe you just randomly select an item off the menu at the restaurant. and do you not take care to consider how you are talking to someone? a friend as compared to a family member, lover, coworker, or local authority? everything we do has an emotional undertone because even on a subconscious level, we are motivated by things that are emotional in nature. maslows pyramid of needs. only the very bottom is physiological in nature. the rest are all psychological.

Some people feel this; some people feel that. None of this entails spirituality. Transcend what? Nothing; they haven't gone anywhere.

perhaps not spirituality as you understand it. but then, all of these threads are basically about how you don't understand spirituality. you are looking at this from a very practical literal point of view, very Drax-ian, to borrow from guardians of the galaxy (sorry). theres this thing where you do something not because its strictly necessary or crucial but because you enjoy it. it makes you happy. does there have to be an explanation? spirituality is basically a recipe for nirvana. and part of nirvana is making tough choices you can live with. as per every example i have given in this thread. why pursue nirvana? because it makes people happy. and because if you live just to live, survive just to survive, then you arent really living.

I agree with everything you say except that this is what spirituality entails. Instead, let's put our heads together and examine the reality of spirituality, which consists purely of people calling themselves spiritual, and the subsequent results of the actions and behaviours in trying to live up to their claims. Let's not simply heed what the spiritual tell us and take it on faith. This isn't about their feelings. Let's witness them and what they do, the reality of it. That is exactly what spirituality consists of—the asserting that oneself is spiritual, and the attempt to live up to that label.

buddhism is a good source of spirituality for beginners. very subtle and easy going. like the shallow end of a pool. and the fruits of their labors, so to speak, are clear. they live long. they stay sharp. they are peaceful. one example of many.

a reply to: theCheddar

I don't see the need to continue this discussion... mostly because you see no need to accept others' viewpoints. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

What discussion? You asserted without reason I have never meditated, I am egotistical and I am ignorant, all, ironically, without evidence, and in an egotistical way—ignorance. In further hypocrisy, you haven't even considered my viewpoint, let alone accepted it. I have furnished arguments and evidence, none of which you've rebutted, instead resorting to blind claims. No, it's not a discussion, nor a debate. It is someone acting out my premise before my very eyes.

Yes, move on.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope


Then consider me confused. I consider myself literate enough to understand a wide variety of vocabulary, but it seems my definition of awareness has been lost on me. If that is a misconception, I apologize.

In order to follow your reasoning any further, I require a little help in understanding your abstract approach to everything.

What is fundamental awareness?

The way I have always been using the word "awareness" is the same as "self-aware consciousness" or "self-aware being". It is our most fundamental sense of being/energy, and is completely self-evident as being always the case.

We tend to equate the process of perception with awareness because many of us tend to think awareness is some point inside the body-mind that is perceiving, that is experiencing everything. However, as I think we have agreed in the past, the body-mind is what is experiencing the process of perception, etc.

Awareness simply notices everything without impacting it nor being separate from it. Awareness is prior to all conditionality - it is unconditional. It is the self-aware "medium" in which all appears and disappears. Awareness is one, not many. It only appears to be "many" because it is assumed to be separately identifiable in association with everyone's body-mind.

One's fundamental awareness is the same as consciousness itself, and just as the body arises in a conscious field of external objects and is totally dependent on such elements for its very existence, so too does the mind arise in such a field, totally dependent on consciousness to exist at all.

This is why awareness does not age - it is our very being/energy itself, not ours to "own", objectify, and control.

a reply to: TzarChasm

I think I understand spirituality quite well. We see it everywhere. Watch anyone who claims to be spiritual. I'm not sure you understand spirituality, and rely too much on the abstract. Let's talk about what is there instead of what isn't.

Why pursue money, drugs, sadism or satiation? It makes them happy. Happiness is never an argument.

Buddhists are not very peaceful either. They vehemently advocated nationalism and violence in world war 2. The Mabatha are doing that today.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Without evidence? Funny... you said:

"I am quite proud to say I've been to the summit of Sagarmāthā. I've surveyed the world from the highest peaks. I've processed more of the world with eyes open than anyone staring at the back of their eyelids ever could."

So... you're a proud person, and you also equate your experience to being better than any experience someone else may have had, without any knowledge of their experience. That's called conceit. You think your experience is right, while theirs is wrong.

You can say whatever you want, however you want to say it, it doesn't change the fact you're vain.

I flew in a plane and looked out the windows. I saw more than you.

a reply to: theCheddar

Let's do a running tally of your hypocrisy:

"I don't see the need to continue this discussion... mostly because you see no need to accept others' viewpoints."

"Spoken like a person who has never meditated."

"You think your experiences are superior to others. "

"...in reality, you haven't processed a damn thing. "

"Ah. I see the problem. You're egotistical."

"you also equate your experience to being better than any experience someone else may have had, without any knowledge of their experience. That's called conceit. You think your experience is right, while theirs is wrong."

"Spoken like a person who has never meditated."

"That's called conceit. You think your experience is right, while theirs is wrong."

"Ignorance is bliss, I guess."

"You can say whatever you want, however you want to say it, it doesn't change the fact you're vain."

Observe everyone...stupidity—a thing of beauty.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

You can keep a tally if you want... it really just proves my point. You're so conceited you can't see everything I said was valid based off what you said.

You obviously don't meditate. Nobody who meditates writes off the practice like you do.

You obviously think your experience is better than theirs, since you flat out insult the belief in spirit by calling spirituality "stupid."

It's all in YOUR words. You dug the whole. You can't get out, no matter how intelligent you think you are.

LesMis, and any other materialists, please consider this.

I think we can agree that the whole of reality cannot be fully accounted for by any point-of-view. The whole of reality is beyond any and all points-of-view. And yet objects clearly exist - but what is the whole of reality including all conditions (objects) that arise? Can it possibly be known from any point-of-view? No, never - how could it? Any point-of-view is inherently limited to a point in time and space.

Reality altogether is clearly beyond time and space, and though objects exist non-separate from reality, they are not as any point-of-view perceives them to be. Reality simply is.

Can perception know reality? No, because perception is clearly a memory - as it takes time for something we sense to create the experience of perception. So perception cannot be the basis for taking into account the whole of reality.

Clearly reality exists, but to take it totally into account, one would have to be directly "knowing" it - not through the memory mechanism of perception, but through being reality itself.

This is what spirituality must be! Materialism and its presumptions of objects existing apart from subjects is useful enough for scientific study, but it is not ever going to account for the whole of reality because any such point-of-view based in objectification is inherently limited. It can never directly know reality itself. In fact, the materialistic approach cannot even know what a single thing actually is in reality, much less the whole of reality.

Reality is without point-of-view, never contained by perception, and always an absolute unity or whole. Nothing can exist outside of reality and only non-separate (non-objectifying) recognition of reality itself will ever be the truth.

(I was deeply impressed by a book called Perfect Philosophy by Adi Da Samraj if anyone is interested in further study of his consideration of reality.)

a reply to: theCheddar

No I do not meditate. Don't need to, nor want to. It was too boring. I prefer to focus on many things, and rest is something I get at nighttime. But I say go for it if you think you need it.

a reply to: bb23108

Subject is only what an object calls itself. I cannot make sense of your base principles, bb. I do not see how your axioms can stand up to scrutiny, or to everyday observation, but I appreciate you taking the time.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
Subject is only what an object calls itself. I cannot make sense of your base principles, bb. I do not see how your axioms can stand up to scrutiny, or to everyday observation, but I appreciate you taking the time.

But do you agree that the materialistic model cannot know what reality is altogether? That the materialistic model is based on a limited point-of-view (or even a very large number of points-of-view) and is therefore incomplete in terms of what reality is altogether - and even what any object actually is in reality?

If you agree, then necessarily a spiritual "approach" is required - one in which all points-of-view are gone beyond, given we have established that reality is beyond all points-of-view limits (how could it not be?).

With such spiritual transcendence of all points-of-view, reality is directly known as is, not through the limited point-of-view mechanism of attention in the body-mind - e.g., perception and conception; but directly, as reality itself.

I hope this helps to clarify the argument.

a reply to: bb23108

Define objects?, to me they are simply static and thus fully knowable since we can study every inch and every side of an object, it does not change, a cup does not become a spoon.
Reality, or should we say actuality is living, moving and thus changing, therefore it can not be known, every moment is new, if not than we have translated it in terms of the old, a concept of reality which is the known and propagated as reality.

Perception is not a memory, it is perceiving incentives through the senses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling.
A memory can arise in the form of a thought if we recognize the incentive, thought is memory.

Reality exists indeed, there are multiple realities known because there are multiple versions and interpretations which are of course subjective.
In the reality of an atheist, there is no god, in the reality of a theist, there is a god.

'Directly "knowing" it' is a wrong choice of words in my opinion.
Let's instead of reality use the word actual, the actual can be seen, life is movement, the movement is seen, but since the actual is constantly moving and thus changing, it can not be known, only seen and eventually becomes the known
If it is known, it is old, a recollection which is a thought, the actual is creative, always new.

a reply to: bb23108

That helps.

You speak of Kant's noumena. That something cannot be known for how it actually is, the thing in itself, but can only be known by the phenomena, how the thing appears to the human mind. It's not that different from Plato's forms.

The problem is, knowing and understanding is a human pass-time. No knowing or understanding is occuring if no one is knowing or understanding. The only way we can know an object is if humans are examining it. Only through a relationship between human and object is any knowing or understanding occuring, and it is exactly the thing it itself, the noumenon, that we are relating with and examining. We are not interacting with an appearance of reality, we are interacting with the thing in itself.

Models do not know; humans know. Models are only descriptions.