h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I try to be spiritual, but have a problem with organized religion. Do you think it is possible to nurture your spirituality in isolation from organized religion?

Yes, if anything I believe it is easier without dogma or boundaries.

Yea! You made it.

I'm pretty sure I agree with you. But years of conditioning crops up on occassion and the old guilt sets in. Then I wonder if I'm throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I did indeed. Nice place Hyp. Good to see you.

As I think you know I was gifted with no spiritual conditioning, so I can explore and find what feels right. It appears to be a never ending journey into the infinite, the point where all and nothing exist at the same time, an extraordinary voyage of discovery. I prefer this to religion.

I wonder, in this context, what is the baby and what the bathwater? Just curious.

Well the bathwater would definitely be dogma. I suppose the baby would be some underlying spiritual truth. I guess I was trying to say that I often wonder if there is a way to keep the good and ignore the nonsense. I honestly don't think that's possible. It would be hypocritical to go through the motions when I think it's just so fundamentally flawed.

The social aspects of organized religion make it appealing though. The feeling of belonging and the support network. But I've never been able to suspend my disbelief long enough to really feel comfortable with it.

The Eastern religions seem more spiritual. Maybe that's because I'm less familiar with them. I've always been attracted to the exotic.

H

Religion has so many different functions, only one of which is spiritual progress. Even if you believe (as I tend to) that spiritual progress is only really attainable on one's own there are still perfectly good things to be achieved by religious involvement. Sense of community, identity with one's fellows, common purpose: all of these things have contributed greatly to the growth of civilization. In a very real sense, nothing that we have today could have been achieved without religion.

Plus, some of them are pretty darn entertaining, and worth the buck. Born-again preachers are better than rock concerts any day for my entertainment buck.

because I'm not really a member here.

Hi MotDoc. We would love to have you join.

I'm glad to hear that you agree that spirituality can be achieved alone. Because I really intend to pursue it and don't want to get involved in a local church.

Momenta, I'm hoping hyou can give me some tips. Since you are already so involved in this area.

H

Salaam,

Hi alright if I tag along.

I'm a Muslim so any wierd questions about Islam just ask.

Spirituality can be achieved on your own, after all it your faith and its you who is praying to God and its what matters in your heart not what the group say.
Groups is good because you have a sense of unity and and brother hood, well at least we do in Islam I don't know about other faiths.

I like going to Mosque as its a chance to meet new people and talk and make new friends and share knowledge on Islam.

This makes my self stronger as well as helps the other brothers and sisters improve there strength in faith.

And remember that it is not arragant to pray directly to God.

Va alaikum

Adib

I was raised as a Methodist. Then converted to Catholicism when I got married. It's not that I don't believe ~any~ of it. It's just that I'm interested in becoming more spiritual and adhering to just one faith seems to make that more difficult. At least for me.

We need to start a discussion soon on comparative religion. We'll wait until we have a few more members. Muzaakboy can provide information about Islam. And if the Professor finds us, he can represent Hindus. It would be nice to find our similarities instead of picking apart our differences.

Here is a beginning of a response to what you asked Hyp. As the representative of spirituality without bathwater here is a bit of my take on things.

Oddly enough I had a dream last night which fits this perfectly. I dreamt I was being taught to tap dance, but the person who was teaching me was invisible; all I could see were the shoes moving. Of course that meant I had to pay really careful attention to the shoes, and the movements the invisible person could be making. This is one very important thing for me:careful attention and focus on what is going on both within and without.

In a way I am the church, or my body at least, and it goes everywhere with me (I realise I state the obvious). The source/the Oneness/God is revealed through an honest vision of what I see both within and without. I know that if I am fearful I am not centred, but this too can be guidance.

I could rave on for hours here, so if there is anything in particular you would like from me just let me know.

Hi to everyone else too.

Sounds ok hypatia.

Adib

Hi everyone!


For what it's worth, it's my belief that we are all God.

I was nominally raised a christian, and I could never understand as a child when was taught that God made us in His image - surely that must mean that God is *both* male and female, right?

Over the years I've followed many roads, but only one Path - my own. I've taken 'lessons' from Wicca, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Shamanism, Taoism (I have had little experience of Islam, other than travelling in Egypt, and look forward to learning more)... and what they all seem to have taught me is that we are *all* part of the same thing, and that we are all looking for the Divine in some way.

I've never understood religious wars - surely all 'religious' folk believe in the same thing, just that everyone's 'God' has different faces/expressions, or has a different way of manifesting due to culture, expectation etc? How can you fight a war in the name of God, when that God is the creator of all of us, and therefore surely would want us all to get along in peace and harmony??


Everyone has a right to their own Path and the right to believe in whatever they want to in my opinion.
But for me, I prefer at the moment to explain my beliefs in the form of Taoism; which maintains that *everything* is the Tao (or God if you prefer ), and it is impossible to use words to describe it, as words imply a separation from the Tao and therefore do not describe it at all! This does make it rather hard to talk about!

From the Tao Te Ching:
"The name that can be named is not the name"
or
"The Way that can be spoken of is not the Way"

- depending on translation.

http://www.friesian.com/taote.htm

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/rel/tao/TaoTeChing.html


So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if God made us in His/Her image (the macrocosm of us, the microcosm), and that God/the Tao is everything, then in some way *we* are God, and we can look inward to find our own divinity. If we make everything harmonious within ourselves and our individual world, then we can bring the rest of the world into harmony.

Some people prefer to look to the macrocosm instead of themselves, the mcrosom, and therefore exernalise their divinity, which is fine.

But for me, the danger of that externalisation is that people are tempted to not take full responsibility for their own lives and actions - if we confess, we can be forgiven.

I guess the flip side of realising our own divinity, is that we may be tempted to play up our own importance and not have faith in the way things are (God, the Tao or whatever) and that things are as they should be.

Is this the difference between religion and sprituality then - the macrocosm and the microcosm?

I think that I've talked myself into a corner here, sorry.

Salaam,

Muslims do not believe that God is in every thing, We believe he is aware of every thing but is in nothing, as he is seperate from this universe.

To Muslims its actually a kind of insult to say God is in us or in every thing as it leads to idol worship, whil Muslim's believe that it we can not know what God looks like and can not even imagine it.

Adib

Hi Muzaakboy

I hope I didn't offend you - it was never my intention.

"To Muslims its actually a kind of insult to say God is in us or in every thing as it leads to idol worship, whil Muslim's believe that it we can not know what God looks like and can not even imagine it."

Idol worship is something that has always seemed strange to me.
As for not being able to imagine what God looks like, I'd agree! That's why Taoism seems to fit for me.

When I say that it's my belief that we are all God, I mean it in the sense that there is a spark of the Divine in all creation, especially humans as we have consciousness which enables us to question our perceptions and thoughts.



But like I said before, everyone should have the freedom to believe in whatever they want to believe - Buddhism would imply that we make our own realities through our thought forms.


Peace.

Salaam,

No I know what you ment so there is no offence.

Adib

My own spiritual beliefs are very similar to those of LSF. Interesting to hear a different viewpoint, Muzaakboy. I'm rarely offended when someone differs in opinion from me.

As I understand it, the Jewish Kabbalah teaches that God, in order to know Him/Herself created a space and the Universe. Thus we are in a way the Child of God - all part of the same entity - a bit like a hologram.

Spirituality and Religion can be very different things, particularly the very dogmatic religions - there are some Christian sects like this - who insist that things are the way *they* say they are and everyone else is wrong - so there! I think this is very misguided, although I'm happy to let them be, as long as they don't try to force their views on me.

There is no compulsion in religion.

That is what it says in the Qur'an and it means that religion should never be foced on to people as if it is then the person is not worshiping God he afraid of what you will do if he does not worship God.

Or in other words people are aloud to believe in God if they want to or not, and no one has a right to make you.

As far as how things are, well Islam only disagrees with evolution of animals from other animals, while it agrees and supplements modern science ideas so I have no worries there.

In the Quran we are told that for people who learn there is signs of Allah's existance in every thing from the smallest atoms to the biggests of things in the universe.

In Islam, religion has to have spirituality as it is built on the belief of God and the book of God.

Adib

Comparative religion forum would be a good time. My family has long believed that comparative religion ought to be a subject in school. Whether seeking to enhance your own beliefs through seeing the 'wrongness' of other faiths or just looking for something to believe, a wider breadth of field would do a lot of people some good.

I personally happen to be most likely the greatest oddball, being a follower of Meher Baba. Although a Zoarastrian Farsi by birth who essentially disclaimed himself from all existing religions, Baba's teachings have strong ties to Sufism, the branch of Islam which believes exactly what was stated earlier, that we are all God trying to understand ourself. Well...its more complicated than that but that's the gist. I also come from a Jewish family so I should be able to help with that part. And to top it off, my girlfriend is Kimet, a believer in the gods of ancient Egypt. So ha...beat that for ecclecticism anyone!

Somewhere (sorry, can't remember where) I read that spiritual truth comes from within, not from without. I took that to mean that if we will be silent and listen to the spirit within ourselves, we will find enlightenment. That we will instinctively know what is truth and what isn't.

From a scientific angle it makes sense that we are all part of the creator. It is difficult to imagine something coming from nothing. So whether you believe that the creative force was pure energy or a divine intelligence, the universe had to be created out of it. In this sense the contention in Genesis that we are created in God's image could be valid. Everything, not just people, would contain part of the creator because he/she/it made the universe out of itself.

I think the importance of this is not that we are exalted beings with a connection to the divine but that we have a connection to one another. For example, Jesus tried to teach his followers that when they fed a beggar they were feeding him. To take it further, when we feed a beggar we feed ourselves.

I'm still trying to imagine feetless shoes tap dancing through Momenta's dreams. I have read a little about Mindfulness as espoused by Thich Nhat Hanh. I think that it means that we should be aware of everything we do. When we eat an apple, we should focus on the taste and texture of the apple. When we walk, we should be aware of the feel of the grass or soil or pavement under our feet. We should be aware of our breath. Is this what your dancing shoes are saying? To focus on the dance? And the dance of course is life.

I think we are meant to experience life. To embrace the highs and lows and everything in between. To pay attention.

H

Yup, that more or less sums it up Hypatia. The dance is life, every aspect of it. I think one of the dangers of sticking to dogmas or saving one's spiritual experiences for a Sunday or whatever is to diminish the areas that spirituality should incorporate, which is everything and everywhere however mundane. Personally I don't want to always dance a gavotte or a waltz, I will follow the dance where it leads.

How do you limit the limitless? How can you put God in a box?

Eastern religions do indeed seem to have a deep understanding of this, not only because they are exotic .

As part of the Oneness, as a mirror to ourselves our actions are reflected back at us, so yes, feed a beggar feeds yourself. Act with loving kindness and what then? When we give I think we give to all, including ourselves.

I'm blahing on now, sorry.

I think I might start another thread on something coming from nothing when I have a little more time, because I feel there is a key in there too.