Having Seen The Ox's Hoof Prints (new Signup)

[JRF2k]

New signup here. New to spiritual enlightenment too. Have meditated in the past for various reasons, so I know how to do at least that much. 

I used to be a religious person, 33 years of my life. Then I started questioning and that lead me to set aside religious dogma and the concepts contained therein and starting looking myself. This also led me to become quite skeptical of everything. I viewed everything from the point of, where is the lie. It seems there is always a lie somewhere. You can't really trust anything you see or read these days. I have become very scientifically minded. I want evidence for the things I believe. If you say it is so, then it's your job to prove it to me and show me how I can attain the same results.

Through all that, I managed to still keep an open mind about things. We know nothing. I know nothing. Taking all our knowledge gained from cave men to astronauts remains a scant nothing in the grandness of the Universe. It's like we haven't even opened our eyes yet, we are merely beginning to lift up our eyelids.

Weirdly, I found myself drawn to this subject. I can't remember how I got on it, but I found this channel called Infinite Waters and started watching it. I love the guy. He is so relaxing to listen to. "Peeeeeaaaaacceeee. Infinite Waters diving deep." That just relaxes me to hear. He is entertaining to listen to, but ultimately the "woo factor" is too great with him. I can't see myself buying into the mysticism aspect of it, chakras, crystal healing, past lives, etc. From there, another Youtuber showed up, Naked Reality, a guy named Rali.  I like him a lot. He takes this stuff and uses modern language to describe it and he doesn't dive into the mysticism and magic. Still, I have problems getting my mind around the no-self, ego death, etc. It's borderline woo for me, but I vibe with his no-nonsense delivery.

I've watched Leo's videos before, the self-improvement ones. I was surprised to see on the feed all these videos from him regarding Enlightenment. I started watching those and again I appreciate the non-magical delivery of the topics again and Leo is a great communicator, I think. 

So, there's a little history of how I got here.

There are some things that are stopping me, though, namely is this just another thing that we use to self-delude ourselves. I've always thought that we humans hate to think about our impending demises. That we cannot seem to accept the thought of the total destruction of us that comes with being dead. We construct these fantasies to help us not be so frightened by this aspect no matter how natural we tell ourselves it is. No one wants to die, so what a better way to deny that fact to say no we don't really die we just change in some way. Whether that's some aspect that leaves our body and goes to another dimension, realm, vibratory plane, or that become one with All That Is we still have a purpose after death and we are still who we were in this life.

Having said that, I accept and am well aware I could be catastrophically wrong about everything. The Universe is so vast and mysterious that I think it's a huge mistake to say, "This IS how it IS." I, as a seeker, seek only the truth. I do not wish to be lied to or told to follow a path that ultimately leads to my own disillusionment and finding out that it's just humans being humans, scared, unsure, and willing to grab on to anything that will provide some kind of comfort from their assured demise. 

Thanks for reading and I appreciate all your thoughts, comments, and advice. I look forward to learning and growing with everyone.

 

 

[Primeval]

 

Welcome to the forum @JRF2k

[abrakamowse]

Welcome @JRF2k !!!!

[Neo]

Love that guy... Infinate Waters Diving Deep, Peeeeace, Can I get a Heeeelllllooooooo?

[abrakamowse]

Maybe this can be of help with what you talked about things that we don't know.

 

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

[JRF2k]

11 minutes ago, abrakamowse said:

Maybe this can be of help with what you talked about things that we don't know.

 

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle

 

Agreed.  I figure if I could not entertain thoughts about this stuff, I wouldn't be here in the first place. I would have already written it off as woo.

I come to this with an open, yet skeptical mind.

 

[abrakamowse]

2 minutes ago, JRF2k said:

Agreed.  I figure if I could not entertain thoughts about this stuff, I wouldn't be here in the first place. I would have already written it off as woo.

I come to this with an open, yet skeptical mind.

 

That's good, I really used to believe in a lot of stuff I don't believe now. Not because I think is false. Mostly because It's not possible to experience it so I prefer to leave that aside. Zen is good on that.

Edited September 23, 2016 by abrakamowse

[Dodo]

On 14/09/2016 at 3:11 PM, mr lenny said:

 

17 hours ago, JRF2k said:

New signup here. New to spiritual enlightenment too. Have meditated in the past for various reasons, so I know how to do at least that much. 

I used to be a religious person, 33 years of my life. Then I started questioning and that lead me to set aside religious dogma and the concepts contained therein and starting looking myself. This also led me to become quite skeptical of everything. I viewed everything from the point of, where is the lie. It seems there is always a lie somewhere. You can't really trust anything you see or read these days. I have become very scientifically minded. I want evidence for the things I believe. If you say it is so, then it's your job to prove it to me and show me how I can attain the same results.

Through all that, I managed to still keep an open mind about things. We know nothing. I know nothing. Taking all our knowledge gained from cave men to astronauts remains a scant nothing in the grandness of the Universe. It's like we haven't even opened our eyes yet, we are merely beginning to lift up our eyelids.

Weirdly, I found myself drawn to this subject. I can't remember how I got on it, but I found this channel called Infinite Waters and started watching it. I love the guy. He is so relaxing to listen to. "Peeeeeaaaaacceeee. Infinite Waters diving deep." That just relaxes me to hear. He is entertaining to listen to, but ultimately the "woo factor" is too great with him. I can't see myself buying into the mysticism aspect of it, chakras, crystal healing, past lives, etc. From there, another Youtuber showed up, Naked Reality, a guy named Rali.  I like him a lot. He takes this stuff and uses modern language to describe it and he doesn't dive into the mysticism and magic. Still, I have problems getting my mind around the no-self, ego death, etc. It's borderline woo for me, but I vibe with his no-nonsense delivery.

I've watched Leo's videos before, the self-improvement ones. I was surprised to see on the feed all these videos from him regarding Enlightenment. I started watching those and again I appreciate the non-magical delivery of the topics again and Leo is a great communicator, I think. 

So, there's a little history of how I got here.

There are some things that are stopping me, though, namely is this just another thing that we use to self-delude ourselves. I've always thought that we humans hate to think about our impending demises. That we cannot seem to accept the thought of the total destruction of us that comes with being dead. We construct these fantasies to help us not be so frightened by this aspect no matter how natural we tell ourselves it is. No one wants to die, so what a better way to deny that fact to say no we don't really die we just change in some way. Whether that's some aspect that leaves our body and goes to another dimension, realm, vibratory plane, or that become one with All That Is we still have a purpose after death and we are still who we were in this life.

Having said that, I accept and am well aware I could be catastrophically wrong about everything. The Universe is so vast and mysterious that I think it's a huge mistake to say, "This IS how it IS." I, as a seeker, seek only the truth. I do not wish to be lied to or told to follow a path that ultimately leads to my own disillusionment and finding out that it's just humans being humans, scared, unsure, and willing to grab on to anything that will provide some kind of comfort from their assured demise. 

Thanks for reading and I appreciate all your thoughts, comments, and advice. I look forward to learning and growing with everyone.

 

 

 

 

Even when i knew nothing of spirituality and so on, i got to the realisation that death is not scary in itself, because its like sleep. You will be dead and then poof you are born, if not in another way, as the same body and mind that generate your own conciousness. It happened once, so in infinity time, the same events leading to your life now can and will happen again and again and again. Even if conciousness wasnt all there is.

So yeah, death should be a joke even to the non spiritual. Its far from woowoo. The suffering is way way bigger issue than death. Suffering because of mental commentry about death makes it bad. While in reality, death is just the statement "this too shall pass" which is one of the best phrases I've come across. 

You cant experience death. You can only ever experience experience. So why would death be scary? Life should be scary if anything.

Ps: Sorry about the weird quoting, my phone is acting up.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Dodoster

[ChimpBrain]

If I had written a summary of myself and how I got here I'd only need to change the part about infinite waters and the other guy for your OP to fit me perfectly .