The real question
Soliton
develop cultures, and these cultures, among other things, try to
interpret the universe around us, the purpose of our existence; they
also try to provide guidelines for happy living, and attempt to
understand the nature of our consciousness (is it some form of 'energy'
that can't be perceived? Is it a 'soul'?).
Regardless of culture, the need to interpret, and to find some sense of
purpose is obviously a fundamental human trait. As we do this, we
develop rules for living a joyous life. Which is the right
interpretation? Can a poem, a painting or a song be categorized as
having a 'right' interpretation? It's just an interpretation which, in
the end, is what spirituality is: just an interpretation. The
interesting thing is that independent of cultural interpretations, the
rules for a happy life, which are essentially conclusions drawn from
these interpretations, are almost identical. If your particular
interpretation allows you to achieve the goals that are important to
you, to feel good about yourself, to see your value (and thus the value
of others), to socialize, to ponder, to just live a happy life wihout
denying anyone else's right to the same, then you've got yourself a
good religion.
A note on organized religion: the texts of ALL major religions contain
similar messages that are intended to guide us towards a happy life.
If we can understand them, then understand how and when to apply them
in everyday life, barring natural disasters, everything should be
great. Since these are all valid interpretations, it's when you get a
particular group claiming their way is the only way that you have to be
careful: this can result from a desire for power, or from a need to
feel special or superior (which points to an inferiority complex:
you're special cause you're YOU dammit).
Gradually heading back to my main point, here's the foundation for my
religion, which stems from what I've experienced, deduced and felt:
I look inside myself and I see three things I understand and one that I
don't: I understand my emotions, my memories and my thought processes,
but all these are like waves crashing on a shore that is of an
incomprehensible nature. Awareness. I am not my emotions, nor
memories nor thoughts, but I can perceive and exert control over all
three, using one to control the other, but my awareness, my individual
essence, is something I can't even begin to understand. What are we?
I am that which allows me to KNOW that I am (nothing new; Descartes "I
think, therefore I am"), but what, exactly, is that? I think that if
we could answer that question, we wouldn't have anymore.
Maybe science can provide some answers someday...Maybe there's an as of
yet invisible connection between the universe without and the one
within, maybe they give rise to each other... and I'm getting carried
away by my need for answers.
My 'rules for a happy life' are derived from my perceptions above, and
are obviously exhaustively long, so I won't list them except for this,
which coincidently matches one from the Bible (though I'm not a
Christian) regarding this particular facet of life, illustrating my
earlier point about all this just being interpretations leading to
similar conclusions:
Lord, give me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity the
accept those I cannot, and the wisdom to know the diff. My personal
wording was different when I realized the above and how to apply it in
life, but the meaning was exactly the same.
SO, the real question is: what is your personal interpretation of the
world around you and the one within? And for a little extra on the
side, why do we have a need for spirituality? Why was this, along with
ethics and whatnot, hardwired into us? What the HELL is going on?
xco...@gmail.com
spirituality. I see the world as it is. I don't believe in the idea
that everything has a soul. I do believe in the power of our body and
mind, though.
Template
do you believe that you continue through time?
Oops, that's another spiritual belief.
Gman
Suffice to say that I believe that a spiritual universe co-exists with
the pyhsical one. I believe that the "spiritual Earth" is our true
home and that we are here in the dense physical in order to learn the
lessons which it has to offer. Sooner or later we will graduate and
return ready now for higher challenges. I believe that various
religions and aboriginal cultures refer repeatedly to this other
existence in scripture and ritual. Christians yearn for salvation and
depemption which seems to be the return process. Sin? Well, sin is
just a concept which describes our temporary physical existence.
Jesus? He came here to show us the way home. Reincarnation? Yeah.
We stay here for enough lifetimes to make the grade. Adam and Eve? A
story telling about the human archtypes who were the first to decend to
the "solid" Earth, to begin the journey of education.
I'm very used to receiving lots of "flak" for writing such things.
Hopefully this forum will be different.
Gman. I believe in God, but avoid religion.
Lee
Man cheers for posting that I was pondering this very idea only last
night.
I have to say what my ponderings lead me to where a departure from what
I used to think, and so I find myself agreeing with some of what Xcottm
has said.
Thusly that we don't all ponder the whys and wherefores of the
universe, that in fact a large number of our speices are quite content
to just carry on living life, and that a very small percentage of us
actualy find the need to search quite overwhelming.
As to the answers to your questions:
Again far to complex to answer really suffice to say if it has taken a
large part of my almost 40 years woking on it, it should then take at
least that long to explain it so that you can comprehend it.
Kyran
question of why and how our universe
pulls together, and I think this is true, but
I also notice that how people who do ask these
questions go about in their search can be
very different.
For instance, Religion, Spirituality, Science, even Art,
all of these can be aimed at trying to discover first,
why we are the way we are, and secondly how we
can make our lives fulfilled or happy.
But just like people have so many ways of searching,
these differing methods have yet to finally agree on
answers, even within their own spheres of discovery.
The questions of what we are, of why we exist in this way,
and of why we feel the need to question our existence, there
are so many questions that its impractical to try and list all
of even my own opinions on all of these questions, so I'll stick
with trying to explain in a few lines my ideas on how our
inner universe and exterior one interact.
To me it's the whole paradox analogy, if a tree falls in the
forest when no one is present, does it make a sound? If no
minds existed to perceive the universe, would it truly "exist"?
I believe that awareness, not necessarily as direct an awareness
as philosophy, but at least some awareness of the universe, is
essential for its existence and a reason for life to exist in the
first place. Perception or awareness is one part of two aspects of
reality, a physical existence and a perception that gives it a
meaning.
Wild Bill
in comes the new. The moment is here and now. Consciousness of one is
the consciousness of many which is the consciousness of one.
Lee
Ummm I could almost belive that except if consciousness is one, then
how come we don't all think alike?
Lola
Lola
Lola
is returned back to us? Have you ever walked into a room where the
tension was so thick you immediately became uncomfortable? IMO, this
is when the room has been poluted with negative energy "vibes". Does
anyone in here know about or believe in empaths?
Vanessa
Vanessa Kirby
Lee
Lola wrote:
> And what if one does not have a conscious?
Hehe then I guess we couldn't be sure who posted the above! Umm in fact
what is who, what does who mean?
Jon G
universe not there when no-one was there to see it? How can that be?
How could we have emerged if there was nothing there? Or was there
alwasy an "aware" species somewhere in the universe, even 1 second
after the big bang?
Jon G
Wayne Leroux-Ricken wrote:
> To me, it seems like life is a dream... Given the right amount of
> time, you can imagine just about anything, in any level of detail. Does
> it make it real? Can you make the difference?
I like this, however, how would you incorporate things we cannot
imagine but that are true, such as more than 3 dimensions, in your
model of reality?
considering the early stages of your life, you did not imagine
ariplanes yet they existed, you may have seen them and not paid
attention.
> What if they universe started TODAY... With all the
> atoms and whatnot in the exact same position, velocity,
> accelleration...
Although it is possible, you would have to assume a lot of things for
this model to exist: some random energy source that pushed everything
into the motion it is in now, the apparent signs of yesterday's
repercussions on the current state, you knowing what you know without
having lived your life... times 6 billion, etc.. Adding time makes it
much easier and you need less assumptions, so it tends to be correct.
But yeah, you can neer know that either
Lola
Nan
Jon G
you imagine it. So, imagination cannot have created it. Maybe I'm not
understanding you.
Jon G
Wayne wrote:
>
> Everything that you know, experience, think, and feel... Is all in
> retrospective of what happened before. Thus, the only ability of
> understanding the past lies in relying on the current status of
> existence. You believe in the past, and you believe time is moving. But
> there is no proof of such.
>
> As the example of the dreams... Given enough time, anyone can imagine
> anything in any level of detail.
>
> Thereby... If you are in a standpoint of now... You can potentially
> 'remember' things you now understand in the past. Let's take the
> airplane for example.
>
> There is no way you can prove that the airplane was even there in the
> first place. The only thing you know is that you remember an
> airplane... But... What I'm trying to get to is that the Past itself
> could be a fabrication of the present in the minute details. Because
> you understand planes at this given date, you can potentially
> 'remember' planes in the past. The Past, in this accord, is only a
> consistent archive of your current beliefs and understanding.
>
> In that respect... Believing in Time is like believing in God. It's
> something you take on faith, and at one point, you're so sure about it
> that you don't question it. You will debate that time exists
> religiously, because there's NO way to prove that Time itself exists...
> Yet, it is, like a god, a commonly accepted concept.
aren't you confusing things? If your brain actively creates the
memories of the past so as to give the illusion of a past that is
consistent and thus undistinguishable from the "real" past, then surely
your brain now (at time 13:33.00 UK time) is different from your brain
now (at time 13:33.05 UK time) because it had to create a new memeory
which gave the illusion that time had elapsed. The fact that my
memories seem to increase as I am awake, tends to show that there is a
change in the status of my brain and change usually tends to show time.
I am not sure whether there is proof or not, however I know that TIME
is a necessity to explain the way the universe behaves. If you take
TIME away from our understanding of the universe, then things are no
longer as predictable as they are and lots ofthings that make sense,
wouldn't anymore. So, Time or whatever for it, needs to exist and
behave the way it does, to hold the whole system together.
God, is not yet demonstrated to be necessary, actually to add God is to
add assumptions and complications to the system. To take time away of
the system (like you are doing) is to complicate the system because of
all the assumptions you have just made (all your what ifs). The system
would run smoothly with Time, althogh your view is a possibility, it is
unlikely. Although God is a possiblity it is assumptious and thus
unlikely to be true.
You will say that my understanding of time NOW creates the necessity of
time in a universe that needs it. This somehow reminds me of all the
"..because God can!" type of answers and unfortunately is as far as we
can go with it.
How do you fit the future into your system (rather our experience of
it, since time may not exist)?
PS sorry about the spelling mistakes, one of my hands seems a lot
slower than the other...)
styrofoamboots
greater role in shaping how and why people do things. Grow up in a
religious home and you stand a greater chance of believing in God, and
a smaller chance of rebelling and becoming an atheist or satanist! My
very cynical view is that EVERYTHING is a simulation, an act played out
that follows cultural guidlines, with small rebellions. The brain
controls all of our emotions, beliefs and perceptions. Therefore the
world as we see it exists inside our individual brains. Haha thats the
whole point! Every single person lives in a different world to the
next, which is why there are on the macro level - wars, on the micro
level - domestic disputes. Stop worrying about where we will all end
up and concentrate on where we are all doing now. Do we need a book to
tell us to be compassionate and caring! Maybe we do.........