The Truth

[UnbornTao]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Who were some of the first spiritual teachers in history?

They weren't teaching religion, though.

Religion is what the original communication turns into when people fail to grasp it.

[TheSelf]

4 hours ago, UnbornTao said:

They weren't teaching religion, though.

Religion is what the original communication turns into when people fail to grasp it.

Exactly

[Carl-Richard]

@m0hsen

@UnbornTao

If you take a look around, self-proclaimed spiritual people tend to rely on teachings which are not themselves direct experience, which seems according to your definition to be religion. Self-proclaimed spiritual people tend to fall into the same behaviors of being guided by faith, belief, conjecture, hope and belonging as religious people. A more defining difference is that they tend to do it in a different social and cultural context. This is evident by how 99% of threads in this place are about how somebody "doesn't get it", "you're taking things on belief", "you're conflating absolute and relative", "don't conflate the concept with the experience", "false teachings", "what people don't seem to understand about awakening", "how do I awaken?", "is this awakening?", etc.

In other words, belief is an integral phenomenon to spiritual communities, same as religious communities. But sure, some religious people seem to place belief higher than direct experience, but it's not a particularly defining distinction.

Edited March 23 by Carl-Richard

[TheSelf]

55 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

If you take a look around, self-proclaimed spiritual people rely on teachings that are not direct experience, which is indistinguishable from what you call religion.

Let me know where to look at exactly.

55 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Self-proclaimed spiritual people fall into the same behaviors of being guided by faith, belief, conjecture, hope and belonging as religious people.

That's when they are no longer spiritual but religious, spirituality is about a journey within yourself, 

Let's delve into the difference between a spiritual individual and religious one:

A religious person typically adheres to specific doctrines, rituals, and practices prescribed by their relegion or organized faith community, often participate in organized worship services, follow religious laws or commandments, and may adhere to a particular set of beliefs about morality, salvation, and the afterlife.

In contrast, you dont see a true spiritual person adhere to any specific religious doctrine or belong to a particular religious community. They may engage in ancient spiritual practices such as meditation, mindfulness, yoga, etc.. to cultivate a deeper connection to themselves, others, and the universe. 

Spirituality is personal and focuses on an individual's inner journey, seeking meaning, purpose, and connection to something greater than oneself (or better to say realization of true self by droping false ideas about oneself) through exploration of methods and finding what resonate ir works on them through direct experience, BIG DIFFERENCE right?!!

 

 

Edited March 23 by m0hsen

[Carl-Richard]

22 minutes ago, m0hsen said:

Let me know where to look at exactly.

For example, the image you posted. It's not direct experience. It's a teaching, a pointer.

 

22 minutes ago, m0hsen said:

A religious person typically adheres to specific doctrines, rituals, and practices prescribed by their relegion or organized faith community.

Doctrine: "direct experience is paramount", "looking inward", "personal exploration", "non-duality", "you are God", "you are Infinity", "reality is One".

Rituals and practices: meditation, mindfulness, yoga, self-inquiry, contemplation, psychedelics.

Faith community: Actualized.org, spiritual YouTube channels, other internet forums, spiritual retreats, Buddhist monasteries (?)

Edited March 23 by Carl-Richard

[TheSelf]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

For example, the image you posted. It's not direct experience. It's a teaching, a pointer.

A pointer, yes, because the individual is seeking it, you are not forced to believe what has been said, you can verify if it's true or not in any way you like, you are free to explore everything else, you are not promised you go to heaven sleeping with hottest chicks you can have if you believe me.

There's a big difference man.

What has been taught as a teaching is to help ones individual in their personal journey, at some point the teachings will be droped, you won't take anything as faith like relegion.

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Doctrine: "direct experience is paramount", "looking inward", "personal exploration", "non-duality", "you are God", "you are Infinity", "reality is One".

Please understand that nobody tell anybody to take anything as faith, brainwashing is not happening here,

Liberation and realization is the result of looking inward for example,

nobody says if you don't believe that you are God, you'll go to hell burn there forever.

An individual may come to you asks for guidance about how to achieve spiritual liberation , you say go look inward, do self-inquery, the individual will experience a bit and see some results as a result of directly applying the techniques and experiencing for himself, and eventually drop everything being thought and archives what he was seeking.

No in any sense you can categorize spirituality and relegion in one fucking bottle!!

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Rituals and practices: meditation, mindfulness, yoga, self-inquiry, contemplation, psychedelics.

You do practices because you want to, because you experminted with them and it deeply resonates with you, nobody put pressure on you or tell you it would be your duty to meditate like performing Salat or Namaz in islam, you go to hell as a muslim if you don't worship, but won't go to hell if you dont sit and close your eyes and watch your flow of breathes lol

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

Faith community: Actualized.org, spiritual YouTube channels, other internet forums, spiritual retreats, Buddhist monasteries (?)

Nobody is here to be part of Actualized.org relegion lol you are here because you find stuff you read here useful in your spiritual journey, because it's a group of people wanting to share and take each others hand and grow together in their journey ❤️

Edited March 23 by m0hsen

[Nemra]

@Carl-Richard Every community is based on some faith. What differentiates religion from others, regardless of its purpose, is that it justifies lifestyle with spiritual talk and spiritual talk with lifestyle. The technique doesn't matter, or it even makes their beliefs stronger.

Think of vision as reality, and you've only been wearing one type of glasses. You don't have the experience of changing or even removing your glasses.

[UnbornTao]

On 23/03/2024 at 10:10 AM, Carl-Richard said:

 

@UnbornTao

If you take a look around, self-proclaimed spiritual people tend to rely on teachings which are not themselves direct experience, which seems according to your definition to be religion. Self-proclaimed spiritual people tend to fall into the same behaviors of being guided by faith, belief, conjecture, hope and belonging as religious people. A more defining difference is that they tend to do it in a different social and cultural context. This is evident by how 99% of threads in this place are about how somebody "doesn't get it", "you're taking things on belief", "you're conflating absolute and relative", "don't conflate the concept with the experience", "false teachings", "what people don't seem to understand about awakening", "how do I awaken?", "is this awakening?", etc.

In other words, belief is an integral phenomenon to spiritual communities, same as religious communities. But sure, some religious people seem to place belief higher than direct experience, but it's not a particularly defining distinction.

Depends on how you define each. If spirituality is defined as the pursuit of direct experience, I'd say very few are spiritual. At that point it'd be more accurate to call it truth seeking.

Humans may be driven to believe, regardless of form. Belief does occur in both; it is fundamental in religion while in spirituality it is also significant but given some leeway. Depends on what each person is up to. A direct inquiry doesn't seem to be commonly pursued, believing is much easier and keeps one off the hook.

Having breakthroughs must step beyond the realm of belief; this is what people like Gautama presumably did.

Also there's the phenomenon of trust which is another thing to look into.

Edited March 24 by UnbornTao

[Carl-Richard]

13 hours ago, m0hsen said:

A pointer, yes, because the individual is seeking it, you are not forced to believe what has been said, you can verify if it's true or not in any way you like, you are free to explore everything else, you are not promised you go to heaven sleeping with hottest chicks you can have if you believe me.

There's a big difference man.

What has been taught as a teaching is to help ones individual in their personal journey, at some point the teachings will be droped, you won't take anything as faith like relegion.

You can learn about direct experience through any religion, just like all the mystics throughout history have. Conversely, you can gather a lot of beliefs from self-proclaimed spiritual people that have nothing to do with direct experience. The stereotypical example there is crystals and tarot readings, but also just deciding which spiritual practice to pursue has an element of faith and belief in it.

 

13 hours ago, m0hsen said:

Please understand that nobody tell anybody to take anything as faith, brainwashing is not happening here,

You'd make a good altar boy 

 

13 hours ago, m0hsen said:

Liberation and realization is the result of looking inward for example,

nobody says if you don't believe that you are God, you'll go to hell burn there forever.

An individual may come to you asks for guidance about how to achieve spiritual liberation , you say go look inward, do self-inquery, the individual will experience a bit and see some results as a result of directly applying the techniques and experiencing for himself, and eventually drop everything being thought and archives what he was seeking.

Yep, you seem to be well-versed in the individualistic "spiritual" doctrine.

 

13 hours ago, m0hsen said:

No in any sense you can categorize spirituality and relegion in one fucking bottle!!

Well, that's what many academics seem to do. Distinguishing religion from spirituality, without merely pointing to social/cultural/historical happenstance, is actually a hard problem. I'm aware that you're giving me the "common sense" distinction that the majority of (secular) people in society seem to use, but I want you to go a little deeper.

 

13 hours ago, m0hsen said:

You do practices because you want to, because you experminted with them and it deeply resonates with you, nobody put pressure on you or tell you it would be your duty to meditate like performing Salat or Namaz in islam, you go to hell as a muslim if you don't worship, but won't go to hell if you dont sit and close your eyes and watch your flow of breathes lol

Nobody is here to be part of Actualized.org relegion lol you are here because you find stuff you read here useful in your spiritual journey, because it's a group of people wanting to share and take each others hand and grow together in their journey ❤️

Again, you're showing good adherence to the doctrine of individualistic "spirituality". That's good  

Edited March 24 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, UnbornTao said:

Depends on how you define each. If spirituality is defined as the pursuit of direct experience, very few are spiritual. At that point, perhaps it'd be better to call it truth seeking, plain and simple.

I have an idea: let's try to look at the behavior of people who call themselves spiritual/religious and go from there.

[UnbornTao]

On 24/03/2024 at 0:12 AM, Carl-Richard said:

I have an idea: let's try to look at the behavior of people who call themselves spiritual/religious and go from there.

Most of them seem to be engaged in one form of believing or another.

Edited March 25 by UnbornTao

[TheSelf]

On 3/24/2024 at 3:35 AM, Carl-Richard said:

Well, that's what many academics seem to do. Distinguishing religion from spirituality, without merely pointing to social/cultural/historical happenstance, is actually a hard problem. I'm aware that you're giving me the "common sense" distinction that the majority of (secular) people in society seem to use, but I want you to go a little deeper.

@Carl-Richard we can go deeper, but I don't know what would be the outcome of this discussion, if you wanna continue discuss how spirituality compared to relegion, to eventually conclude that they are in one category let's just agree to disagree.

[Carl-Richard]

On 25.3.2024 at 1:25 PM, TheSelf said:

@Carl-Richard we can go deeper, but I don't know what would be the outcome of this discussion, if you wanna continue discuss how spirituality compared to relegion, to eventually conclude that they are in one category let's just agree to disagree.

The outcome is that we can get more clear on what we think spirituality and religion is. By the way, I'm not saying it's useless to distinguish between spirituality and religion. I'm saying the distinction is not based on substantial differences but rather something trivial like history.

What you seem to refer to as "spirituality", many academics like to call "New Age religion". And again, to distinguish it from "traditional religion" (e.g. "world religions", "organized religion"), they generally point to historical and cultural developments: New Age is a religious movement originating in the early 70s and is compatible with individualistic and (post)modern values. New Agers tend to value individual expression and pick and choose among different religious traditions for inspiration but are not dedicated to a single tradition. So the core of New Age and traditional religion is the same, only the cultural clothing is different.

New Age is of course not necessarily about mysticism ("direct experience"), which explains the general connotation of the word in these circles ("New Agers only care about crystals, spirits, astrology, reincarnation, etc.; essentially just beliefs"). Likewise (and more obviously), traditional religion is not necessarily about mysticism either, which also explains the general connotation of that word in these circles ("religion is about beliefs"). But of course, mysticism does exist both in New Age and traditional religion. To say that New Age and traditional religion are about beliefs is only one part of the picture.

Like many people in these circles, you seem to place an equal sign between spirituality and mysticism (direct experience), but at the same time, you couch it in an individualistic and modern cultural frame ("your personal spiritual journey"). Could it be that these cultural values make up the "doctrine" of your religion? Could it be that if you had lived 1000 years in the future and looked back at your current self, you would've called yourself religious, because you would've clearly seen the cultural values as an arbitrary addition to the higher goal of mysticism? I think the same thing would've happened if you had lived as a mystic 1000 years ago.

Anyways, if we are to sum up your statements into a coherent whole: you seem to follow a religion with an individualistic and modern cultural frame with an emphasis on mysticism, which roughly adds up to New Age religion.

Edited March 26 by Carl-Richard

[Ishanga]

From my research everything started as a Spiritual Practice or path of sorts, then it got organized and become more about Belief than One's personal Experience, then with Organization and Belief as the standard things get political and Religion is born.  Now some may say that the larger Spiritual Org's look exactly the same, in some ways they are, but those places maybe more about popularity and bringing in more $$ than Spirituality in its truest form...

With practices and yoga and such, in my experience it not about faith, I don't have faith in the practices, I just use them and see what happens, of course for all of this too happen I have to have an Interest and motivation, this is similar to learning good Martial Arts, if you look from the outside it all looks like crap and useless, but when You go indepth with it, and learn from a qualified master then practice it, it works like magic, its the same with High Quality Sadhana and Yoga methods, this is not the same as rituals where the ppl just go in, do something with no mindfulness or intention and then leave the place/ritual and no transformation is taking place, its like ppl driving to work on the same route everyday they lose focus and awareness of what is going on around them... 

[UnbornTao]

@Carl-Richard

Religion is a confession of having failed at personal experience. It denigrates the movement towards honesty by adopting more beliefs. Granted, there might be some benefits for some people to gain from engaging in either religion or spirituality, such as a sense of communion and shared values, but these are social.

Even what so-called spiritual people are up to is being followers, not serious contemplators. Entertaining stories and theories that approve of their worldviews are much preferred over a personal investigation. And then, there are a few individuals who want to know.

Edited March 30 by UnbornTao

[Carl-Richard]

@UnbornTao

Guidance, either by your own intellect, intuition or sense, or by some outside source, is in 99.999% cases an inevitable part of not just spirituality or religion, but mysticism (the seeking of "direct experience"). Unless you spontaneously awaken and spontaneously accept this new existence (which are two separate and highly unlikely events, especially in conjunction), guidance is something you'll run into on the path.

Whether you want to claim that guidance is just a game the ego likes the play or whether there is actual causal significance between guidance and the end goal, before the end goal is realized, guidance is in 99.999% of cases encountered. Therefore, to try to separate guidance from the activity of mysticism, is hopelessly futile. You can try, but don't pretend you're in that boat. You're not the noble savage or naive miracle saint that can speak from that position. You're contaminated goods, filled up to the brim with information and stories that contradict the ideal you're espousing (which is actually not a problem — only insisting on the contradiction is).

As for making the case for causal significance, my little brother has reported to me several ego death experiences, even sober ones. He does not meditate, he does not consume spiritual concepts. By all means, he has had spontaneous awakenings (by my judgement, as someone who also has had them). That said, he did not accept them as himself or as reality. He saw them as something foreign and largely unwanted, a source of confusion and ambivalence. It was the same for me the first time I had one, and it was only after I sought guidance and identified it within the spiritual frame that I started viewing it as something desirable (at least in principle) and that I started actively pursuing it. And this is not unique to me or my brother: there are other famous stories of the same phenomena.

So spontaneous awakenings aren't enough, and spontaneous acceptance is hard to come by. What guidance can help with is to make yourself aware of the importance of things like acceptance. Whether that helps towards the actual goal of acceptance is another story, but at least the possibility is there. At least the alternative seems less likely. Besides, what else can you do? As soon as you read one letter of a book or a post about spirituality, your mind will be forever tainted by this new information; your way of conceptualizing your own goals and ambitions, your own spiritual quest, is forever changed (and maybe for the good). If you want to live in this world, you have no choice but to seek and/or accept guidance.

So I don't see much value in insisting on putting the genie back into the bottle. Rather work with what you've got and acknowledge the limitations.

Edited March 26 by Carl-Richard

[TheSelf]

On 3/25/2024 at 11:39 PM, Carl-Richard said:

The outcome is that we can get more clear on what we think spirituality and religion is. By the way, I'm not saying it's useless to distinguish between spirituality and religion. I'm saying the distinction is not based on substantial differences but rather something trivial like history.

What you seem to refer to as "spirituality", many academics like to call "New Age religion". And again, to distinguish it from "traditional religion" (e.g. "world religions", "organized religion"), they generally point to historical and cultural developments: New Age is a religious movement originating in the early 70s and is compatible with individualistic and (post)modern values. New Agers tend to value individual expression and pick and choose among different religious traditions for inspiration but are not dedicated to a single tradition. So the core of New Age and traditional religion is the same, only the cultural clothing is different.

New Age is of course not necessarily about mysticism ("direct experience"), which explains the general connotation of the word in these circles ("New Agers only care about crystals, spirits, astrology, reincarnation, etc.; essentially just beliefs"). Likewise (and more obviously), traditional religion is not necessarily about mysticism either, which also explains the general connotation of that word in these circles ("religion is about beliefs"). But of course, mysticism does exist both in New Age and traditional religion. To say that New Age and traditional religion are about beliefs is only one part of the picture.

Like many people in these circles, you seem to place an equal sign between spirituality and mysticism (direct experience), but at the same time, you couch it in an individualistic and modern cultural frame ("your personal spiritual journey"). Could it be that these cultural values make up the "doctrine" of your religion? Could it be that if you had lived 1000 years in the future and looked back at your current self, you would've called yourself religious, because you would've clearly seen the cultural values as an arbitrary addition to the higher goal of mysticism? I think the same thing would've happened if you had lived as a mystic 1000 years ago.

Anyways, if we are to sum up your statements into a coherent whole: you seem to follow a religion with an individualistic and modern cultural frame with an emphasis on mysticism, which roughly adds up to New Age religion.

What you think relegion and spirituality is by definition?

I've wrote what I think it is, so let me know what you think these are by definition,

And we can continue to discuss from there.

Forget about academical views on these, I personally don't care since they don't know what they're talking about.

Edited March 26 by TheSelf

[Carl-Richard]

24 minutes ago, TheSelf said:

What you think relegion and spirituality is by definition?

I've wrote what I think it's, so let me know what you think these are by definition.

I like Zinnbauer's definition: spirituality is "the personal or group search for the sacred" (the "highest value"), and religion is "the personal or group search for the sacred within a traditional context". How you define "traditional context" is of course dependent on history. What people consider "spirituality" today might be the religion of tomorrow, merely by the fact that it's seen as traditional or "old". That is also why it makes little sense to treat them as very different things, because the difference is only created by who views it and when, not what is the actual substance of the phenomena (and the actual substance is generally the same).

The actual substance could be described as the overall structure or dimensions of the phenomena: concepts, ideas, doctrines, institutions, rituals, symbols, etc. This structure is the same for all forms of "search for the sacred", both spirituality and religion. What might differ between different forms could be for example the level of institutional and doctrinal integration (for example New Age and folk religions seem low on that scale while the World religions seem high on that scale).

Again, the sacred is not necessarily identical to mysticism, or the "goal" of mysticism (direct experience of Oneness, God, etc.), but in your case, it might be.

Edited March 26 by Carl-Richard

[TheSelf]

38 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

What people consider "spirituality" today might be the religion of tomorrow, merely by the fact that it's seen as traditional or "old"

Let's make it simpler,

Lets define spirituality as just "a direct experience of what the truth is", whatever it might be, No dogma's, no worshiping system, no God etc. very pure, very dry.

How this can be seen in future as a system of faith or religion? In what sense?

 

38 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

religion is "the search for the sacred within a traditional context"

Btw about this definition of relegion, simply a religious person doesn't search or seek, they just believe the system, they do, either because of the fear or the rewards or both promised in the relegion or faith community, 

In what system you saw a religious person in a state of seeking or searching?

This definition doesn't really apply to many relegions specialy the world relegions.

 

Edited March 26 by TheSelf

[Cheese]

Nice!

My proccess of thinking :

1.God created beings and objects.

2.Beings and objects are emanated from spirit.

3.Beings and objects are aspects of the absolute reality itself.

 

I am probably still stuck in the spirituality bottle, i do not know much of this couscioussness thinking, but fun to be creative.