Do we ever decrease in spirituality?

Or religion for that matter? I think this is an interesting and important question. Religion seems to have it that you can fall out of favor with God if you "stop" that religion. IE stop praying 5 times a day towards Mecca, label yourself an atheist ect. But is this sort of thinking based on truth, is it of God, or of humans?

What if you were a perfect Christian, or whatever, and then become a drunk and reject everything you learned? It seems sort of odd since most would think that you can become "unsaved" after becoming saved. What's the difference between someone having a stroke and being in a coma for the last 10 years of their life, and a person who becomes atheist for the last 10 years of their life whatever reason? Most would think the person in a coma, if they were a Christian before, would be saved, but what if the atheist has a similar prediction of being unable to practice their religion? A coma is a good enough reason to stop practicing your religion, but some less obvious affliction affects an atheist and its not forgiven? It really seems like just a human determination between who is good and who isn't.

Or just to put it more simply, can a person be a perfect religious/spiritual person early in life and have attained salvation, totally forget the path later in life and become unsaved? I don't think so but that's where I'm looking for peoples' ideas. Things tend to "come up" in life that can seemingly push people away, but I don't think that it has any effect on someone's spiritual level.

It seems religion thinks that "salvation status" changes whereas spirituality holds that it doesn't change with the changing environment and forces on a person.

Why or how could God allow you to go backwards on your path? Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of being here on Earth?

This sort of has important implications, could prior Christians turned atheists actually be considered saved by orthodoxy?

[edit on 7-12-2009 by ghaleon12]

reply to post by ghaleon12


I have to say your questioning might not be understood by many, but I think you just proved that religious interpretation of spirituality is so far gone from the truth. I say we can fluctuate in spirituality, we can chose how to behave, we can even behave in a way we know is incorrect. I would say spirituality is a spectrum, not necessarily that you are spiritual or not.

reply to post by ExPostFacto


It always sounds so much better when I'm pondering it in my head, then come time to write and its about as disorganized as it can get. So I apologize for that

I sort of hold that spirituality doesn't involve physical actions. There is no such thing as a good or bad spiritual action, its just impossible. Behavior is impacted by things that are outside a person's control, PTSD can make people have temper issues for example. Go to the extremes and lets say a soldier comes home from war, kills someone, what are we supposed to think? But if there are no good or bad spiritual actions, we really can't do anything incorrect in that regard.

It just seems odd perhaps that we forgive people when their bodies fail them, like a stroke in the prior example, but when their minds fail them we have no forgiveness. We certainly don't expect our bodies to function fully forever, yet our minds are somehow impervious to defect? Do Christians have protection from dementia and other aliments of the mind?

And since when is salvation of the mind? Can a person just change "where they're going" by just alternating between saying "I worship the devil" and "Jesus cleanse me and forgive my sin?" What changes exactly? Do people actually think God is this petty? You can't rely on the body or mind...

Well, I don't do the religious thing, so I can't answer from that perspective. However, I am spiritual. Can one decrease in spirituality? Yes.

I tell you how. Secular humanism. Many spiritual people get so caught up in helping others that it devolves into various forms of secular humanism.



[edit on 8-12-2009 by SpeakerofTruth]

reply to post by ghaleon12


Spirituality is not religion.

And religion is not spirituality.

Religion is community : and sheep.


Spirituality is all spiritual things

Originally posted by SpeakerofTruth
Well, I don't do the religious thing, so I can't answer from that perspective. However, I am spiritual. Can one decrease in spirituality? Yes.

I tell you how. Secular humanism. Many spiritual people get so caught up in helping others that it devolves into various forms of secular humanism.



[edit on 8-12-2009 by SpeakerofTruth]

As far as spiritual level though, I don't think it can decrease. How could you go backwards? Seems like God wouldn't be doing his job really. True spirituality isn't about physical actions, so they probably aren't spiritual people to start with. And its not about doing the "religious thing" or not, just a matter of logic really.

Spirituality is not religion.

And religion is not spirituality.

Religion is community : and sheep.


Spirituality is all spiritual things

I agree, religion is largely culture. Religion can be spiritual, just as anything can be "spiritual" but it depends on how its used. Spirituality isn't about community? The relation between souls becomes spirituality, we have to exist together eventually in a spiritual, non physical form, see any difficulty with how our makeup would fit into that as it is now? We're here so we can fit into a future spiritual world. We don't perceive heaven since we aren't ready to receive it as a complete whole.


[edit on 8-12-2009 by ghaleon12]

If you do something and get good at it, but then stop doing it later on, you would be out of practice right? Likewise in spiritual practice if you practice for a while, and then stop practicing for whatever reason, then you will be out of practice. I will give you an example, I had a friend who at one point in life use to religiously practice Buddhism, his practice had become so good that he began to develop psychic powers. He would know what you were thinking or were going to say even before you thought or said it. His intuition started to guide him to the right things in life, literally he said, his consciousness would zoom into things that were of value automatically.
After this really intense period, he stopped practicing and started to focus more on pleasure-seeking. As a result of which, his psychic abilities went away.

The moral of the story is if your practice is working, then there is no need to fix it. Keep going and achieive the final goal. I don't blame you, most of us do not keep our practice going and as a result we begin to falter.

reply to post by ghaleon12

Hi,

Let me aplogise in advance for how long this reply may get.

So many questions and yet they all seek the same answer. There's an old saying that once you know the right question to ask you will know the answer, as it is part of the question.

I cannot comment from the christian perspective relating to the Belief of having been "saved", but I would like to reply in my own way.

Firstly, "spiritual" IS everything. Nothing is not-spiritual. You know that saying; "You are a spiritual being having a human experience" ? Everything exists as one energy vibrating at different frequencies (according to Quantum Physics/Mechanics), so that One is all things... including Awareness, and thus all things are "Spiritual".

There are NO varying degrees of spiritual, unless you Believe that your actions denote your "Spirituality" on the grand scale. There ARE varying degrees of Awareness. Each Belief-System has a boundary, the Limit of its Scope and Perception. And so people will move out of one degree of Awareness within one religion and on to hopefully awaken to the next bigger picture of Awareness. When doing so the Beliefs attached to in the previous religion are usually cleared, modified, dicarded or made redundant with emergence into that next degree of Awareness.

In the case where you asked about being saved and then sliding backwards in your life, etc, we can look at it from varying degrees of Awareness. One will be any version of Limited Belief, which insists you ARE "sliding backwards" based on the Presumption that Life is about what I call The Dream. You know the dream, it is what we are all Indoctrinated with from birth in every waking moment that says you must Follow the well worn path of your Religious Society.

Another much larger perception would be that ALL Experience is Valid, given that you are a portion of the One experiencing Itself. With this perception there is no Judgement of what you Should be Doing, and No Penalties exist. In which case you never NEEDED "saving" in the first place since you are already an eternal portion of the One.

So to answer your first question then, we have come to a level of Awareness suggesting.. No, you cannot ever decrease in spirituality. But, many people will Believe you have if you "slide backwards" from their perception based on their lifetime-indoctrination into their belief-system.

This then implies an answer to each question you asked. It also seriously suggests the Control Drama within Belief-Systems. And when we look at the experience of many who have "evolved" out of such Systems we find that YES there is a control drama being used to keep you within the Boundaries of that Indoctrinated or Chosen Belief-System, and that drama is the Fear of Not being Saved or in other words having to suffer for eternity for what you do in this one little life.

Why or how could God allow you to go backwards on your path? Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of being here on Earth?

Excellent Question. This One energy, the thing experiencing Itself through all Its portions including You does not Judge. Its Awareness is comprehensive and therefore a far bigger picture than we can imagine with our limited current Awareness.

So, it does not Allow nor Disallow, it is only what it is; an Energetic Awareness that is all things, and far more bigger picture than the Human Concept "God". It cares no more about what You do than I care what one atom in a skin cell on my arm is doing.

And yes, the Concept DOES defeat the Purpose of being Here. You do see your answers within your questions.

[edit on 8-12-2009 by Tayesin]

i believe some people are more spiritual than others.
decrease in spirituality? sounds hard.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
If you do something and get good at it, but then stop doing it later on, you would be out of practice right? Likewise in spiritual practice if you practice for a while, and then stop practicing for whatever reason, then you will be out of practice. I will give you an example, I had a friend who at one point in life use to religiously practice Buddhism, his practice had become so good that he began to develop psychic powers. He would know what you were thinking or were going to say even before you thought or said it. His intuition started to guide him to the right things in life, literally he said, his consciousness would zoom into things that were of value automatically.
After this really intense period, he stopped practicing and started to focus more on pleasure-seeking. As a result of which, his psychic abilities went away.

The moral of the story is if your practice is working, then there is no need to fix it. Keep going and achieive the final goal. I don't blame you, most of us do not keep our practice going and as a result we begin to falter.

Meh.... I remember when I used to practice. I almost got killed twice. By others trying to usurp my hard earned stuff all the while begging me to not just kick their butts by simply preaching of love, mercy, God, souls, angel, the light, goodness, positivity, obtimism, not to give up on them, not wipe floors with them, etc. And they were usurpers who killed people in the past. And were willing & trying to kill me until the very last moment until they couldn't get to me anymore.

And as for spiritual evolution, I like to think there is a big difference between choosing not to do something & being prevented from doing something until the very last moment of one's life. Like murder, rape, usurpation, robbery, etc.

Imagine a guy with a long criminal history who committed rape, murder, & roberry by still has no official criminal record. And he was driving off after perfectly hiding or burning a victim's corpse & gaining ownership over his victim's property by getting some papers forcefuly signed before the killing. And then he celebrates being the new owner of the dead guy's home, real estate, business, & other stuff by drinking some booze with his helper thugs. Then he has a car accicent on the way back to his hideout or mansion & he ends up crippled, disfigured, or comatose in some way. Then it should be okay for anybody who later founds out about his dirty deeds to assume that if he were to be up & awake, he's still be jumping around like a horse, raping people, killing people, robbing people, and /or usurping people's hard earned belongings.

Believe it or not, such things like the above do happen in Asia, Africa, Middle East, & other less developed countries.

reply to post by ghaleon12


I don't really think so.

In my experience, we all share the same basic and unalterable nature, being light. And in my encounters with 'the light', I have sensed nothing resembling judgment beyond what our own 'higher selves' wish to impose upon us. I believe the 'karma' for intentional cruelty involves the gut wrenching pain of feeling what we caused others to feel in one giant wave of reconciliation with the 'universal soul'. When I was granted a review of my life, it hurt to know the hurt that I caused others - and because we are literally one, we are motivated with zeal to fix our mistakes, since we can feel everyone's pain when we are in that 'higher plane" - it feels like terror, and it feels like love.

Anything we do to others, we literally do to ourselves.

Notions of individual progress are rendered moot by the nature of our unity.

[edit on 9-12-2009 by TrueTruth]

spiriatuality is a weird journey for me at least, with all the things i've learned over this year and all the new ways of looking at things and all the spiritual work i feel like i've accomplished i often find myself sometimes back at square one.

Originally posted by ghaleon12
reply to post by ExPostFacto

 

It always sounds so much better when I'm pondering it in my head, then come time to write and its about as disorganized as it can get. So I apologize for that

You sound like Augustine trying to understand time "What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. "

Admission to confussion may be the beginning of understanding.