If you follow no religion but interested in nonduality, what do you think of FAITH?

[thedoorsareopen]

If you're interested in nonduality, but don't follow an organized religion, how important is the concept of faith to you?

I'm curious because for a couple of years I grooved on nonduality, meditating on oneness, and reading about Brahman. I thought I lived in an impersonal universe. Turned out I didn't read far enough ahead. Earlier this year, Ishvara, or just something more akin to infinite intelligence, or a more traditional idea of God has been revealing itself to me. I'm never exactly sure what I'm perceiving, all I really know is that I know nothing, right.

But I've been surprised the last few months how resistant, resentful and unsettled I am that an all-powerful and aware transcendent intelligence really has been watching me this whole time (hey God!)... I'm still really resentful about the religious school I attended as a kid, and it's a severe mindfuck that there is something more than just the base, ineffable substrate of the universe. You mean you were watching the whole time?

I feel like I'm right back to being a kid, struggling with free will vs fate, and really struggling with humility. The way I feel by default is very resentful about this, but I know that's not very skillful or helpful.

I have been paralyzed in terms of returning to the world in much of a meaningful way since discovering nonduality, because I feel like I simply don't know where I stand. It kinda helped my emotional health a little bit, I was severely suicidal, depressed and dysfunctional leading up to that discovery, and since then I've been kinda limping along, thinking maybe one day I would figure out how to motivate myself to do things like socialize, start a business, try to get a job that isn't near minimum wage, but I feel like if there's an intelligence watching me, and I have already befallen the many struggles and crises and just overall complete and utter psychological and spiritual dysfunction I've felt in my life, and that intelligence oversaw all that suffering, I don't have much hope for the future.

I literally had more hope when I believed God didn't exist, and I'm kinda not sure how to proceed now.

I've just been defaulting to Vipassana meditation and gratitude practice, but it's kinda like once the high vibe wears off after a couple hours, I'm just back in the ego mind, which feels absolutely hopeless, and of course is conditioned to be fearful and is not at all welcoming of the "good news" that I am surrounded by intelligent Love. 

I seem to be vacillating between being high on meditation and prayer practices that cause me to believe in delusional love and light stuff, then being busted back down to depression sadness when I try to make contact with the world. I am kinda surprised that all these years of trauma recovery and study of spiritual practice and the human psyche have not really afforded me any confidence in the relative world.

I'm not really sure how to project my intentions into the world or into the future.

I was kinda curious what you consciousness explorers make of the concept of faith, if you're coming from a specifically NON-religious paradigm.

I'm kinda thinking this whole nonduality trip was just a cul-de-sac of spiritual masturbation designed to turn an agnostic into a believer, and when I'm filled up with gratitude or samadi, I feel hopeful. But the hunk of meat that makes up my human mind is fucking disgusted and sad, I guess I'd always hoped that the ultimate real truth was something completely different from just... "magical irrational God just arbitrarily fucking with me by teaching me bullshit 'lessons.'"

Even after all this meditation I'm struggling to place my faith in that. I guess I was deluding myself with nonduality that maybe I, the little me, was really "it," but it's becoming clear that I'm not. It's not that I thought I was that great, I guess I just thought if I lived in a cold, uncaring universe at least that meant that it really was all my fault, and I could do something about it with my merit, and instead it seems there's forces beyond my control after all, and it makes me feel sad and powerless.

[Staples]

Sorry to answer you serious question with a meme, but it illustrates the point well. Delusions (faith) can serve our survival, but they are not truth.

Faith is belief in a grand narrative, without evidence or reason.

Post-modernism reveals grand narratives are constructed and inherently 'unreal'. 

A construction is not truth. It's a filter that distorts reality to serve you selfishly in some way.

Drop beliefs and narratives and get in touch with real Truth. 

Edited September 25 by Staples

[Ulax]

You have a concentration meditation practice?

[Leo Gura]

@thedoorsareopen You just need to work on constructing a material life worth living. This is where life purpose, career, relationships, family, art, and education come into play.

What you need is not God but construction of a rewarding and meaningful life.

[Greatnestwithin]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@thedoorsareopen You just need to work on constructing a material life worth living. This is where life purpose, career, relationships, family, art, and education come into play.

What you need is not God but construction of a rewarding and meaningful life.

@Leo Gura what is that for you these days Leo? Has new aspiration come to your heart, new areas of life to deepen etc?

[thedoorsareopen]

Concentrating on the breath, yeah. Sometimes I focus on a dot on a wall or a candle flame, but not as regularly as the Vipassana.

Is there really any practical difference between nonduality and believing in a dualistic god/man relationship in the end? I still feel like a ragdoll being tossed around by higher forces.

[PurpleTree]

faith in what?

[BlueOak]

Having faith in you is extremely important. You'll see it showing up more in your reality.
An all-powerful intelligence wasn't just watching your self-concept: It is you watching yourself.

You still have separation between you and you, where none exists. The self concept you have is inside your observable reality, but not you watching the reality.

We find these separations throughout this kind of introspection, often they can be quite subtle at times. The harder bit you'll soon realise is, nobody was responsible for any suffering you've been through but you. That's the bit that's tough to take or understand at first, because we live long enough we experience suffering. It can be enough to repel people from this realisation at all.

We can want to point at the illness, or the abuser, or the tyrant and say no that was responsible, but they are all you too. Try not to slip into identifying with the self again when realising this, so you don't start blaming a self that doesn't exist, because talking about 'yourself' and 'you' (or the self and the I AM) are two distinctions its helpful to keep in conversation while going through this, even if they too must eventually collapse together as one whole in practice and understanding.

Edited September 25 by BlueOak

[thedoorsareopen]

Well, I mean it's "me," in terms of some bullshit language games. But the dude waking up here didn't invent the universe and seems to have very little influence over the course of events.

[BlueOak]

12 minutes ago, thedoorsareopen said:

Well, I mean it's "me," in terms of some bullshit language games. But the dude waking up here didn't invent the universe and seems to have very little influence over the course of events.

Going Meta.

You are the universe observing a physical human walking around that you call your'self', or in this case the dude.

If you feel you have no control and focus on that, you'll have no control.
If you feel its a struggle for control, it'll be a struggle for control.
If you feel like you have no influence and focus on that, you'll have no influence.

Whatever feeling state you are in is directly manifesting around you, influencing the patterns running through your life, changed by our own perception and filters, and then renewed by our actions.

Often we are unconscious of this but you've put this text here to tell yourself that you are now becoming more conscious of how you shape reality. You are seeing a series of patterns repeating in a cycle, that's how infinity is observed in physicality. You focus on the parts of the pattern you wish to observe more of, acting on them to recreate it.

Never start to say well if I am the universe, why can't I win the lottery or some other odd language. Because its 13 million to one in the UK, that's why. You are those odds too. 

What you'll feel is the contrast between one pattern and another, and that's often called pain or discomfort when you want to make a change.
 

Edited September 25 by BlueOak

[El Zapato]

5 hours ago, Staples said:

Sorry to answer you serious question with a meme, but it illustrates the point well. Delusions (faith) can serve our survival, but they are not truth.

Faith is belief in a grand narrative, without evidence or reason.

Post-modernism reveals grand narratives are constructed and inherently 'unreal'. 

A construction is not truth. It's a filter that distorts reality to serve you selfishly in some way.

Drop beliefs and narratives and get in touch with real Truth. 

I disagree...if one lacks faith then one is f*cked.  Where does one go with a lantern that isn't lit? You must have faith in something. 

[BlueOak]

Oh and if you want the paradox to close (a duality). Bliss/Suffering.

Ignoring yourself or the bits in pain probably won't integrate them into a healthy life, but other times changing focus is enough to put you on the right track.

Edited September 25 by BlueOak

[Breakingthewall]

Faith is absolutely toxic because fills what should be empty to be able to see. 

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, El Zapato said:

You must have faith in something. 

Why do you need faith? You exist, that's all.

[gettoefl]

6 hours ago, thedoorsareopen said:

Concentrating on the breath, yeah. Sometimes I focus on a dot on a wall or a candle flame, but not as regularly as the Vipassana.

Is there really any practical difference between nonduality and believing in a dualistic god/man relationship in the end? I still feel like a ragdoll being tossed around by higher forces.

Non-duality isn't faith or anything conceptual

Faith is the stuff I assume as true

Ultimately there is ego or there is god

As ego one has faith in a million things

Towards god, one needs faith in a different million things

Choose sparsely and move gingerly

Faith is the things I accept will get me to where I want to go

Believe, investigate, keep/discard, rinse/repeat

[gettoefl]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Faith is absolutely toxic because fills what should be empty to be able to see. 

Yes true, but it is a crutch for the lame

And you need it until you don't

It is helpful initially since we have acquired a lot of faith in falsehood

[gettoefl]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Why do you need faith? You exist, that's all.

Number one, you need faith that there is more than a material world

and that a spiritual world will reveal the absolute truth

Someone needs to tell you this

And if you don't have faith in it, you won't realize it

Edited September 25 by gettoefl

[Hojo]

I think I am going through the same troubles. When you awaken you see God you think because its you are good and you try to change yourself to be good or better.

But when this happens you start to actively fight against yourself. You need to have no should or shouldn't and keep living life the same way you were before because you were being genuine before God.

If you were an asshole before seeing God keep being an asshole if you didn't care about anything seeing God does not mean you have to start caring.

If you are struggling to pursue it means you don't want to do it. And doing it is going against. Throw this whole idea of a better life out the window and be yourself. Trying to better yourself is a trap you are perfect.

I developed psoriasis i think because i am fighting my mind all day.

You dont need to better yourself you need to do what when you want you dont need to impress God with trying to be a better person you need to show God you are doing what you want.

Faith = what I'm doing is good enough God will protect me I don't have to do anything.

Its the best way to be you only need faith.

Edited September 25 by Hojo

[Adrian colby]

@thedoorsareopen the word faith is what I interpret as ‘holding to your own truest version of self’ and not faltering from it. Creating from your own infinite potential in alignment with what brings you joy. 
 

it’s part of my creation process and a type of belief ( not a belief at the human level but the use of belief in reality construction. Imagining something into being from a state of no self and using belief to deceive yourself as to hold it as real. Faith is standing by it until it starts to materialise) nothing to do with religion or god but rather a mechanism of the mind. 

[thedoorsareopen]

Nothin to do but get on with it.