Absent of spirituality...

[osgart]

That's what spirituality is all about, or should be, it spotlights our deficiencies so that we can progress. Also what you say about not thinking you're not a lost cause would be true for me too, if I thought myself a lost cause I would give up.

Thank you for clarifying my thoughts on this!

Yeah for the longest time I tried for perfection, only to realize that it was an unworthy, and unrealistic goal. When I failed to be perfect, it gnawed at me, and sent me into bouts with depression.

1) I can see ideal forms of spirituality but never practical and reasonable forms
2) my idea of perfection was only good for realizing how good life could be if. It never was a means to an end
3) spirituality without willingness wasn't going to get me far. My conscience also used to burden me because I thought perfection, instead of realization and understanding.
4) some might say I'm compromising, but I'm trying to be truthful about who I am to myself.
5) finally I realized that I must face facts about myself to walk even a single step.

Where does this all get me. It gets me in tune with who I want to be as a person. There are no shortcuts that I can see. No guarantees either. The desire to pursue spiritual goals was every bit as important as the desire to get to the destination.

Then I thought what if I'm the only one, and no one else cares that's important to me. I decided it was a worthy journey anyway. Mainly because I loved the vision I thought I had. Absent that I felt life to be a meaningless pursuit; hands against stone. Even ceasing to exist forever wasn't going to deter me from my spiritual pursuit.

If the real world turned out to be empty and shallow, hard and cruel, I still have refuge in my spirituality, and so what if I end up in a Noah's ark. I was all aboard on commitment to the journey.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Without the help of a power greater than myself, which I choose to call God, I probably wouldn’t be able to stay sober; I’d get drunk, lose everything, and die a squalid death as many good people I know have done.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Without the help of a power greater than myself, which I choose to call God, I probably wouldn’t be able to stay sober; I’d get drunk, lose everything, and die a squalid death as many good people I know have done.

So me as in effect spiritual through philosophy, I use it to cope with in my worldview the existential absurdity of being a human.

 

[osgart]

Without the help of a power greater than myself, which I choose to call God, I probably wouldn’t be able to stay sober; I’d get drunk, lose everything, and die a squalid death as many good people I know have done.

I was talking with a lawyer who's over 100 days sober. He was telling the story of how AA got started; something to do with Carl Jung and friends of his struggling with the addiction. He is an atheist. His point was that it works and is effective at turning people's lives around if only they would recognize that a higher power is there and take steps. They don't have to know all about it. They just have to recognize it. He mentioned things like charity, and he contrasted that with atomist thinking like the physicalists would think.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I was talking with a lawyer who's over 100 days sober. He was telling the story of how AA got started; something to do with Carl Jung and friends of his struggling with the addiction. He is an atheist. His point was that it works and is effective at turning people's lives around if only they would recognize that a higher power is there and take steps. They don't have to know all about it. They just have to recognize it. He mentioned things like charity, and he contrasted that with atomist thinking like the physicalists would think.

Yeah, Carl Jung was a friend to AA in it's early days. A scientist with sufficient humility to recognise that science has it's limitations, and a medical man who was quick to recognise the value of a holistic approach to human wellbeing.

 

[syo]

Why don't you become pagan?

 

[Kenny]

I first address this thread to people who consider themselves in anyway spiritual/religious.

What are you, absent of your spirituality? When you lose your zeal, or if you were to simply take a break, what would happen?

My zeal is barely coming back. I feel like I've been spiritually dead for like 2 years now. Haven't been immersed really like I used to.

I tried being secular recently.

absent of my spiritual practices, I am the following:

Lustful. I'm a dog, what can I say?
Lazy
Fearful
Depressed
Angry

All of these things I experience to the greatest degrees, absent of my spirituality.

My morality stems from my spiritual practice I feel. Spirituality is necessary for me to be a good person.

A charge I would often hear layed on Christians was that they were only good because they were scared of their god. In my times past being a Christian, this often held true for me. It's not like that really anymore. I fear negative karma, and sometimes it makes me think about what I'm doing before I do it, don't get me wrong. But its more like spirituality brings out the best in me.

If you were to take a break from your religion/spiritual practices for an extended time, what would happen? How would your mental state be? I think this might illustrate how important ones spirituality can be. And perhaps it's benefit to society.

Moral atheists, who are good for the sake of being good, I salute you! I am not half that person.

Never scared of my Savior and God. Dislike immensely when people say that to other people.

I see it as a marriage where there is intimacy and transparency. Although commitment is a part of the relationship, going back to my first love is always the effort that has to keep being present. The "why's" of falling in love... then I fall in love all over again. But I never consider "taking a break" from my marriage.

 

[an anarchist]

Why don't you become pagan?

I am becoming pagan

 

[an anarchist]

I can't tell you who I'd be without all of this, because I'd no longer be myself as I know it. I am unable to think with someone else's brain

Without my spirituality, I am definitely not longer myself. Well, what I'd like to consider my true self. I hope my bad side, absent of spirituality, isn't really me.

 

[JustGeorge]

Without my spirituality, I am definitely not longer myself. Well, what I'd like to consider my true self. I hope my bad side, absent of spirituality, isn't really me.

I think both my good side and bad side are spiritual...