Absent of spirituality...

[an anarchist]

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.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

I lose my spirituality when I don't take my medications. Unlike most people who think they're the second coming of Christ when they don't take their meds, I actually revert to atheism when I don't take my meds but become very spiritual when I do. This is because my meds revert my head back to my teenage years when I was near the peak of my spirituality. I didn't know what to call my beliefs at that point so I just said I was agnostic, but in my late 20's to early 30s I did research and found out there's a whole group of spiritual transhumanists called Earthseed that came to the same conclusions as me when it comes to syntheism, pantheism and the like. Since I'm going to take medications for the rest of my life, I intend on following my religion, Earthseed, further, becoming a beacon of light and hope for the small movement. But if I couldn't take my meds for whatever reason I would lose my sense of purpose and spirituality and probably revert back to atheism again. My parents are atheists. They think I don't believe in God but I keep reminding them that I do. People on both sides try to pretend that I'm just like them and think I agree with everything they believe in. I am a believer. I do believe in God. But the God of Earthseed is neither atheist nor Christian. Having to remind people of that gets tiresome sometimes.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

My spiritual practices have become more laid back and focused on accepting that I will not always be able to be what I wish I was. I’m starting to accept that sometimes my flaws will show but I can do my best to work on them.

 

[an anarchist]

I lose my spirituality when I don't take my medications.

Interesting. I actually stopped taking all my medications as of late, as part of my pursuit to spiritually revive myself.

One thing I should add. Absent of my spirituality, it is perhaps possible for me to find peace in a regular, medicated life. Just going to therapy several times a week, taking LOTS of meds, and just paying bills with my 9-5. Maybe settle down with someone. But the thing is I tried this. Perhaps in the future I will try again. But, for now, I will try to succeed through life with my spirituality instead.

I am acutely aware I am a mere man without my spirituality and on my meds, and it will depress me. With spirituality, I am a god.

 

[an anarchist]

My spiritual practices have become more laid back and focused on accepting that I will not always be able to be what I wish I was.

Perhaps I have not reached that level of maturity yet.

Not trying to sound mean, but I hope I never reach that point. I will become my best self. If there is one word that I believe describes me, it is "potential". It is when I no longer believe in my potential that I feel like I falter. I cannot accept myself for who I am if I am not the best I can be.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Perhaps I have not reached that level of maturity yet.

Not trying to sound mean, but I hope I never reach that point. I will become my best self. If there is one word that I believe describes me, it is "potential". It is when I no longer believe in my potential that I feel like I falter. I cannot accept myself for who I am if I am not the best I can be.

That is great that you have such motivation, and I hope it gets you to where you are aiming.

I have noticed that if I stress myself too far then I begin to hate myself when something doesn’t go according to my expectations. I wanted to go with the flow more. That isn’t to say I don’t have goals that I aim for, just that I am trying not to rely on them for my happiness.

 

[an anarchist]

That is great that you have such motivation, and I hope it gets you to where you are aiming.

I have noticed that if I stress myself too far then I begin to hate myself when something doesn’t go according to my expectations. I wanted to go with the flow more. That isn’t to say I don’t have goals that I aim for, just that I am trying not to rely on them for my happiness.

Wei wu wei my friend

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Interesting. I actually stopped taking all my medications as of late, as part of my pursuit to spiritually revive myself.

One thing I should add. Absent of my spirituality, it is perhaps possible for me to find peace in a regular, medicated life. Just going to therapy several times a week, taking LOTS of meds, and just paying bills with my 9-5. Maybe settle down with someone. But the thing is I tried this. Perhaps in the future I will try again. But, for now, I will try to succeed through life with my spirituality instead.

I am acutely aware I am a mere man without my spirituality and on my meds, and it will depress me. With spirituality, I am a god.

When I stop taking my meds I am too focused on certain things to think about God or spirituality. I become a total wreck. I suffer from acute mania off meds and have erotomania and sex addiction without my medications, so naturally I go against the idea of God off meds because I'm too focused on love and the flesh. I know I am an unusual case as many people who go off meds think they are God, including yourself. But not all mental illness is caused by spirituality or magical thinking.

 

[JustGeorge]

I don't think my spirituality could be removed, and have me be even remotely the same person.

My spirituality isn't merely some external rituals, or sets of beliefs and rules, or a self help method. Its who I am, how I think, the way I see the world. It is the awe and wonder that overtakes me, and its the despair and hopelessness that prevails at other times. It is my dreams at night, and my idle daydreams. It isn't apart from me, its within me.

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(and that's who would have that brain, someone else entirely).

 

[osgart]

When I focus on spirituality all my human flaws become more obvious. It's like a flashlight on all that I'm not. That gives me overwhelming humility, and peace. Being human is not my fault and accepting my humanity I can focus better on the journey of endless steps toward my goal of being more in line with transcendent pursuits. I also know I'm not a lost cause, and at my worst I'm not too bad.

Absent spirituality I question everything, and feel trapped in mundane reality, and all the worldly concerns of what I lack, and what I need, and what I want, and what mountains I face.

Spirituality is rest and freedom.

Whether absent, or involved I know love. So I do the best I can even when I don't feel like it.

 

[Bird123]

WE are all Spiritual beings in our true natures. We are all Spiritual regardless of any choices we make. This can never change.

Do religious beliefs determine our choices? If one ignores those beliefs does one become evil?

In this time based causal universe we might hear beliefs of what one should do, however this is not the learning factor. We learn through the results of our choices. When one understands all sides, intelligence will make the Best choices. At this level, there are choices that are no longer viable choices one could make simply because we know they are not intelligent.

People can tell you not to do something a million times, but the only thing that really makes a difference is Understanding.

This is why some atheists can have greater morals than some of the most religious people. It comes down to who knows and understands what it takes to create a heavenly state for themselves and all around.

So now comes the choice: Do you memorize rules then blindly strive to follow those rules knowing when you relax and stop thinking about the rules the rules mean nothing OR strive to understand all sides of choices in order to Discover why a choice is the best choice or the choice that is no longer viable for an intelligent person to make?

Isn't it better to know than to follow blindly believing?

Go ahead!! Jump in the water. The waves can get rough, however Intelligence will lead to the calm waters at the Higher Level.

That's what I see. It's very clear!!

 

[Truthseeker]

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.

Yes, that's true, it does stem from spiritual practice. I love your honesty here. That's what a good person does, by the way. They are honest with themselves and honest with others.

I'll be honest too in return and say while I do pray and think about moral Writings, I don't let those Writings get into my inner being, I think about them rationally. I do get some spirituality from praying, however. It would be good for my spirituality and good behavior to meditate. Meditate for me means meditating on a virtue, and how it applies to my life, how I could better that the next day. It is soaking in that virtue, and letting it in. I haven't been doing that.

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.

If I took a complete break, it would be bad. I know this because as I said above I am not doing what I could and the results are mediocre.

 

[Truthseeker]

I lose my spirituality when I don't take my medications. Unlike most people who think they're the second coming of Christ when they don't take their meds, I actually revert to atheism when I don't take my meds but become very spiritual when I do. This is because my meds revert my head back to my teenage years when I was near the peak of my spirituality. I didn't know what to call my beliefs at that point so I just said I was agnostic, but in my late 20's to early 30s I did research and found out there's a whole group of spiritual transhumanists called Earthseed that came to the same conclusions as me when it comes to syntheism, pantheism and the like. Since I'm going to take medications for the rest of my life, I intend on following my religion, Earthseed, further, becoming a beacon of light and hope for the small movement. But if I couldn't take my meds for whatever reason I would lose my sense of purpose and spirituality and probably revert back to atheism again. My parents are atheists. They think I don't believe in God but I keep reminding them that I do. People on both sides try to pretend that I'm just like them and think I agree with everything they believe in. I am a believer. I do believe in God. But the God of Earthseed is neither atheist nor Christian. Having to remind people of that gets tiresome sometimes.

I'm not sure how to relate to that but to say once in the late 1990s, I was really depressed, and for a short period, I completely lost my faith and spirituality. i took drugs then at that time for depression, but really even before I got the drugs I was starting to recover because I had been removed from my situation that made me depressed. I got depressed again over a situation about 9 or 10 years ago, and I took drugs again, but honestly when I realized what was causing my depression (because for this one it wasn't clear to me why I was depressed) the depression went away mostly because the situation changed. This time too I lost my spirituality while I was depressed.

My situation is different, but it may be related. I'm not a psychiatrist so really you can ignore what I just said.

 

[Truthseeker]

When I stop taking my meds I am too focused on certain things to think about God or spirituality. I become a total wreck. I suffer from acute mania off meds and have erotomania and sex addiction without my medications, so naturally I go against the idea of God off meds because I'm too focused on love and the flesh. I know I am an unusual case as many people who go off meds think they are God, including yourself. But not all mental illness is caused by spirituality or magical thinking.

I encourage you keep taking your meds.

 

[Truthseeker]

I don't think my spirituality could be removed, and have me be even remotely the same person.

My spirituality isn't merely some external rituals, or sets of beliefs and rules, or a self help method. Its who I am, how I think, the way I see the world. It is the awe and wonder that overtakes me, and its the despair and hopelessness that prevails at other times. It is my dreams at night, and my idle daydreams. It isn't apart from me, its within me.

And a good person you certainly are.

 

[JustGeorge]

And a good person you certainly are.

Thank you.

 

[Truthseeker]

When I focus on spirituality all my human flaws become more obvious. It's like a flashlight on all that I'm not. That gives me overwhelming humility, and peace. Being human is not my fault and accepting my humanity I can focus better on the journey of endless steps toward my goal of being more in line with transcendent pursuits. I also know I'm not a lost cause, and at my worst I'm not too bad.

Absent spirituality I question everything, and feel trapped in mundane reality, and all the worldly concerns of what I lack, and what I need, and what I want, and what mountains I face.

Spirituality is rest and freedom.

Whether absent, or involved I know love. So I do the best I can even when I don't feel like it.

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!

 

[Truthseeker]

Thank you.

That avatar is something I am more familiar with. A clue: One of three main deities of Hinduism.

I copied part of your answer into a file. Also I did that @osgart.

 

[JustGeorge]

That avatar is something I am more familiar with. A clue: One of three main deities of Hinduism.

I copied part of your answer into a file. Also I did that @osgart.

Its Shiva.

I thought it was interesting that the random number generator picked him today, as its Pradosh.

(That's how I choose my avatars for the day, by setting the random number generator to choose one of the pictures from my picture folder.)

 

[Truthseeker]

I thought it was interesting that the random number generator picked him today, as its Pradosh.

(That's how I choose my avatars for the day, by setting the random number generator to choose one of the pictures from my picture folder.)

I used to do that with selections from Writings from various Baha'i books. I'm a number nut.

Pradosha or Pradosham (IAST: Pradoṣa) is a bimonthly occasion on the thirteenth day of every fortnight in the Hindu calendar. It is closely connected with the worship of the Hindu god Shiva.

What is the date of Pradosh?


18 April, 2023 01:27 PM.

The last is a strange answer to my query.