Religion

Religion

Ralan, thanks for your post. I remember that particular head space that you have now about 30 years ago and sadly, like today, no one ran a spiritual welfare program back then. So I decided to go out of my way to search for answers that had been bugging me. I learned that no one was really interested in proving anything to me because I had to do all the leg work / searching myself.

Unless you have the great fortune of bumping into a Spiritual Master at a laundromat and he takes pity upon you, your search may take a while. I can tell you that being a chess player from hell, looking forward in a logical manner becomes second nature and you get the ability to look further and further without making mistakes. For me, I knew at a very early age that I had been given a false set of dogma as it just didnt make sense to me and I also was not content to have figured this out so I started searching and reading.

In that past state of mind, nothing would have sufficed to convince me, short of the heavens parting, and a large hand showing up and taking me away to higher places. Nevertheless, I pushed on and read everything I could. Until I found the path that I came here to find. The rest is history for me.

If you are content where you are at, by all means stay there for that is your choice. You will need to prove or disprove things for your self that is not another persons responsibility. You may note in your search for information that there are alot of people that share the same realizations as what you refer to as fiction.

One book I would recomend you read is "Meetings With Remarkable Men" by Geurdieff I think it was, it has been over 20 years since I read it. It is a book about one mans search for a Master.

I look forward to conversing with you in 20 years to see if you have had any contact with fiction
 
Religion

Originally posted by Ralan@Jul 19 2004, 02:12 PM
Grayson, you have some great ideas. I share a lot of your opinions on religion, especially those about its origins. StarLord, when reading this thread I was never sure if the things you say are fictional, or if you believe them to be true, and if you can prove them to be so.

Here is my personal take on finding your beliefs, and my own philosophy.

What other people can tell me, what they believe, what books and accounts and history can tell me; I was affected by and considered all of these things when looking for my beliefs. But the most important thing, however old a book is, and however powerful a preacher is, was that I detatched myself from these things, and looked at the universe around me, observed life independantly, and greatly based my beliefs on the truth based on what I could see without anything interfering with it. I saw that most beautiful things, which I had taken for granted, and the most terrible things, which had been hidden from me. This method of looking at what I saw to be the truth rather than what I was told was the truth lead me to the philosophy of modern humanism. I see no evidence for a god, God, life after death, heaven, hell, or reincarnation. I see that there are things we cannot explain, but also that there are things which we now understand, through science, the great give of sentient life, which we did not understand in the past and simlarly used as evidence for a greater being. I honestly and earnestly yearn for every human to be happy and for the world to be completely at peace, and for every human to treat all other life well.

Hmm. I appear to be a hippie.

:love: ?>:D< ?:love:
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Those are some great views Ralan. :)
 
Religion

Ralan, how would you define "Modern Humanism" and to what degree would it's role play in experiencing Self Awareness, Self Realization and finally God Realization?

Here is a hint, a very great man once said "Know Thy Self" he was not talking about the phisical side of reality.
 
Religion

Originally posted by StarLord@Jul 27 2004, 04:19 PM
Ralan, how would you define \"Modern Humanism\" and to what degree would it's role play in experiencing Self Awareness, Self Realization and finally God Realization?

Here is a hint, a very great man once said \"Know Thy Self\" he was not talking about the phisical side of reality.
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To know thyself, one must first understand the world in which you live, then you have context. Without context, there is no frame of reference and you simply become self-absorbed through viewing in isolation.

:huh: That was a bit surreal?
 
Religion

Grayson,

Sorry old bean, but I have to disagree. Knowing thyself in the way it was meant was refering to understanding in totality the spiritual side of ourself, the emotional side, the mental side, hell, ALL sides, which finally lead to self realization. For without out that experience everything else is just pucky. THEN you learn how to relate that to the exterior world and how it fits you.

Not only is the saying ascribed to Socrates, but the actual wording in greek
'Gnothi se auton' according to Plutarch was incribed on Apollo's Oracle Of Delphi temple on Mt. Parnassus in ancient Greece. To this day the Oracle Of Delphi still functions for those that are aware enough to hear it's wisdom.
 
Religion

Originally posted by StarLord@Jul 29 2004, 03:19 PM
Grayson,

Sorry old bean, but I have to disagree. Knowing thyself in the way it was meant was refering to understanding in totality the spiritual side of ourself, the emotional side, the mental side, hell, ALL sides, which finally lead to self realization. For without out that experience everything else is just pucky. ?THEN you learn how to relate that to the exterior world and how it fits you.

Not only is the saying ascribed to Socrates, but the actual wording in greek
'Gnothi se auton' according to Plutarch was incribed on Apollo's Oracle Of Delphi temple on Mt. Parnassus in ancient Greece. To this day the Oracle Of Delphi still functions for those that are aware enough to hear it's wisdom.
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Self realization is fundamentally different from self awareness in place. We bandy with semantics here, but it is an important hair to split. Socrates, whilst Sagacious beyond his time, was living in a world far smaller and less complicated than that which we live in today. Ergo, the wisdoms were socially linear in context with the time. Today, we live a far more complex life, in an infinitely more complex world, the onus is therefore on you to expand the Know thyself model of introspective understanding into a more embracing form which takes into account your broader being.

It comes down to the difference between a Human Being and a Human Doing, if you see the difference. ;)

The Holiday was good, thanks. :D
 
Religion

Less complicated yes, but still no different in the search for truth / self. Albeit there are a bushel x 100 more avenues for you to lose your attention on (waste time) then there were back then. Due to the nature of the times back then, teaching esoteric arts had to be kept secret as you could make your life very difficult at best if you lived / survived going against the accepted mores.

Thus the beginning of the Mystery Schools. It would be a very good idea to search on this subject if one has no foundation regarding what sort of things were taught.

The actual term in greek for self is auton, but the meaning goes farther in depth than speaking about a body. The reference to know thy self has to do with experiencing your eternal self, the Soul, not the mind. Self Realization. It has nothing to do with the Id, or the Mind or the subconscious.

There is nothing more enlightening than having that experience and KNOWING that there is a vast difference between the driver, which is the eternal soul, and the vehicle or body which dies. Just that simple experience alone resolves 75% of our hidden fears and stress. Death is one of mans greatest fear. Well, besides waking up the next morning, besides medusa.
 
Religion

Ralan, how would you define \"Modern Humanism\" and to what degree would it's role play in experiencing Self Awareness, Self Realization and finally God Realization?

Here is a hint, a very great man once said \"Know Thy Self\" he was not talking about the phisical side of reality.
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I am not a modern humanist in an active sense; I am trying to say that my period of 'searching' a few years ago led me to a philosophy which is very similar to it. My philosophy is that life, especially sentient life, is more valuable than any other thing. The ultimate goal is omnihappiness; the perfect world is one in which every sentient being is content with its life, and non-sentient beings never have to suffer unnecessarily.

No, no, no, and a line through the above.

All that should be obvious, there's barely any point in saying it. What I really want to get across is that I'm not a modern humanist. I am a human with carefully worked out morals, and that's it. I want no complications to my 'spiritual' beliefs. I also worked hard to get out of the anti-religious phase I was in, for example, getting really pissed off when forced into churches, heated arguments with preachers and so on.

My real worry is that because I'm still so young (compared to most of you guys), that I'm getting it all wrong through inexperience. I find it hard to handle the scope that you cover. So it a few years, I'm going to look back and think what a mistake what I believe now is, or that's what I fear.

I'm getting very mixed up at the moment about a lot of things, probably trying to take too much in at once. On the other hand, I want to get where I'm going fast. I'm too impatient to wait to know what I'm talking about.

Well this is a mess. Sorry it's a little late.
 

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