Spiritual activity experience or metaphor?

[sandandfoam]

I read on another thread

Spiritual activity is not a metaphor. It's an experience.

For a long time I considered it metaphor. Recently I've had cause to think even more than I normally do about spiritual matters and my view has changed.
I agree with this statement. It's like a 'snapshot' of where I'm at in relation to spirituality and religion. What does anyone else think?

 

[Magic Man]

I'm not sure I know what you mean. I always assumed spiritual acitivity was an experience.

 

[sandandfoam]

In the past I saw the purpose of spiritual activity as attempting to make sense of an underlying reality that was a way of understanding that reality, but not in itself reality.
I've changed my mind - spiritual activity is experiencing reality.

 

[Magic Man]

I agree, it's just a different part of reality, or a different way of seeing the same part.

 

[Bishadi]

In the past I saw the purpose of spiritual activity as attempting to make sense of an underlying reality that was a way of understanding that reality, but not in itself reality.
I've changed my mind - spiritual activity is experiencing reality.

Now that is an awesome representation sharing that hope is not the goal but to comprehend reality is the best answer!

Was it simply a little exposure to 'good' knowledge.

SO the question I have is what were the key points that assists you? What can be the final icing on the tree of knowledge to allow you this realization?

Think of the little people for a moment:

Can you list the real imporant items so that maybe a teacher can assist the youngsters now developing their 'choices', so that they will not have to wait soooooo long to find out what reality is all about?

If what you have begun to understand has given you Peace, please share!

 

[sandandfoam]

Hi Bishadi,
I was at my aunts funeral and I experienced it, she had been baptised in the font that was right beside her coffin, so had many of my relations, that really struck me. This, this spirituality is real. After the funeral service we went to the graveyard, many of my relations and ancestors are buried there, it just became apparent to me that while I may well spend the rest of my life trying to rationalise the feeling that came to me, to do so (i.e. rationalise it) may well be beyond me. That does not take away from the authenticity of the experience. Spirituality is experience that it may or may not be possible for me to rationalise, I was approaching it the wrong way around.
I wasn't looking to find peace but this experience has given it to me.

 

[sojourner]

In noticing God, we experience the greatest reality.

 

[Willamena]

*blink* What is "spiritual activity"?

 

[sandandfoam]

*blink* What is "spiritual activity"?

For me it includes thinking about life and God, sitting in a church, going to a funeral, a wedding or a christening, saying a prayer, reading certain material.

 

[Willamena]

For me it includes thinking about life and God, sitting in a church, going to a funeral, a wedding or a christening, saying a prayer, reading certain material.

And if those were considered to be metaphor, what might the images they present symbolize?

 

[sojourner]

And if those were considered to be metaphor, what might the images they present symbolize?

If it's metaphor, what is the reality that the metaphor represents? I think that, for those who have noticed God, there is no greater reality, no greater truth than that experience. For those of us who have had that experience, it is, rather, the "real world" that becomes metaphor for the truth of our spiritual experience.

 

[sandandfoam]

And if those were considered to be metaphor, what might the images they present symbolize?

For me
The image thinking about God symbolized to me was understanding myself.
Sitting in a church symbolized understanding through a specific cultural paradigm.
Going to church could be seen as a metaphor for a spiritual journey.
Weddings, Christenings and funerals symbolized certain stages in life.

I saw these things, for me, as things that allowed me to make an attempt to get to grips with reality. They were a way of getting my head around reality but assuredly not reality itself. I was mistaken, these things are reality, they are not metaphors, they do not "call into question the underlying category structure".
These activities are an experience that is complete in itself, they are not a metaphor.

 

[Willamena]

Can't they be both metaphor and an experience of reality? After all, we experience metaphor, too.

 

[sandandfoam]

Can't they be both metaphor and an experience of reality? After all, we experience metaphor, too.

I understand metaphor as questioning the underlying category, perhaps I am mistaken in doing so. The way I understand things they can't be both because metaphor is not reality, it is a way of representing reality that doubts itself.

 

[Willamena]

I understand metaphor as questioning the underlying category, perhaps I am mistaken in doing so. The way I understand things they can't be both because metaphor is not reality, it is a way of representing reality that doubts itself.

I think of metaphor like a window. Metaphor presents us with an image, and if the image rings (like a bell) (yes, I'm using metaphors) for us, then we understand what the message its intended to portray is. Once we get the metaphor, we are seeing reality through that window.

 

[Magic Man]

I think of metaphor like a window. Metaphor presents us with an image, and if the image rings (like a bell) (yes, I'm using metaphors) for us, then we understand what the message its intended to portray is. Once we get the metaphor, we are seeing reality through that window.

That's a very good simile.

 

[Dunemeister]

What sorts of things do you call "spiritual activity"?

 

[sandandfoam]

What sorts of things do you call "spiritual activity"?

I outlined my view in Post #9 of this thread.

 

[Bishadi]

it seems a metaphor could be like looking into a fish tank and say, 'fish'.... we see it, know it, experience the observance yet unable to put a name to the variety or specific species.

is that what this means?

call into question the underlying category structure".

So it may appear that each are capable of experiencing the metaphor of 'God's existence' without having to define the experience into words..

Seems like you have 'experienced' existence, without the words to define what it is.

And then if you read through the various religions we find each are describing what that experience is; different words, variety of terms; but the same 'experience.'

So then in a pure set of words it is pretty easy to recognize that just about every soul ever born could be 'experiencing' the same thing but there are no definitions to put each account into a unifying frame to reference.

Now do you see the goal, my friend. No joking around, for each to comprehend what these phenomenon are in a physical frame is what allows not only equality, as the application is literally universal but also to ground the realities so comprehension can be understood to remove the contradictions of opinions which cause isolations and rebellion.. (conflict)

The same existence (God) is universal; it is the words that are lacking to combine the logic.

 

[Dunemeister]

I outlined my view in Post #9 of this thread.

Okay, thanks. Somehow I missed it.