Do we have a spirit and, if so, what role does it play in our relationship with God?

[muhammad_isa]

No judge follows that rule....... the good deeds does not veto the bad..

Wrong .. a judge will take previously good character into consideration for minor sins.
Major sins, such as murder or adultery, carry severe punishment regardless.

However, I think you'll find that a Catholic priest will seek repentance from their
subjects on death row. G-d forgives whomsoever He wills, and punishes whomsoever He wills.

What do you believe, what is the eternal fate for a sinner?

See above..

How many times do you have to sin to become a sinner? (I am pretty sure you can't do anything to lose the title of a sinner)

We are ALL sinners .. and even major sins can be forgiven with sincere repentance and not repeating the sin.

 

[Thomas]

On the other hand, if a person is serious about growing spiritually, wouldn’t he or she seek a deeper and fuller understanding of spirituality? If, in fact, he/she has a spirit that is assigned to them with such consistency as to be considered his/her own spirit, wouldn’t it behoove him/her to learn about it and use it? Failure to do so might at some point be considered willful ignorance.

How would they do that?

Then again, why have leaders of religion not emphasized the concept and experience of an individual’s spirit?

Are you sufficiently au fait with the teachings to make this statement?

I only comment because to my knowledge the 'leaders of religion' do.

Was it considered too difficult for the congregants? Too dangerous, as in “don’t try this at home?”

Christ taught prayer, and that's about it. Love of neighbour. Self-denial. What particular message do you see missing?

I have decried the failure of mystagogy as a living practice within my own church, but then I have not seen much of an appetite for it.

Then again, 'do your own thing' is exemplified in the US, resulting in 1,000s of denominations where each one thinks it has the golden ticket.

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It may well be that those who are serious in the pursuit of spiritual growth do so, but not in the public eye, and nor do they seek it.

 

[Thomas]

But I do agree with you that my being arises out of the Ground of Being ... and there is a continuity there, a commonality between myself as this particular self-referent instance of being and Being/Mind.

I think previously I have argued a kind of mind-being dichotomy – my being v your mind – and that was my mistake. I tend to regard them now as synonyms.

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Also wanted to add that the spiritual search has no end, as it's end in in the hidden-ness of God, a God who lies beyond Mind, that is beyond all categories and intellections.

It is here, in this 'divine darkness' that we arise and in it we have our lives and our being, and the full, spiritual expression of that is in the simple and the everyday acts of warmth and generosity towards oneself and others, and the life of prayer which is the communion with that darkness.

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[otherbrother]

How would they do that?

The main way I am doing it is creating a mindset of looking forward to my “night school” sessions as I sleep/dream. I take advantage of a naturally “thin veil” situation. It seems to be a specific form of lucid dreaming in which I try to encounter a character or characters representing my spirit in each dream.
I realize that I need to test other techniques also, since not everyone even recalls their dreams, much less meaningfully interact in them.
One technique was before actually falling asleep. I look for lights in my mind’s eye with my eyes closed as I prepare to fall asleep. Recently I saw indigo light emerging in the dark, streaks of light. I had the goosebump-like chill of excitement as though sensing a presence. Later the next day I returned to that feeling while seeing beautiful clouds and feeling harmony and awe. Apparently my spirit originally summoned prior to sleep reappeared the next day, as if to say “Hi. I’m here.”
Contemplating beautiful scenes with or without the dream work might help our spirits reveal themselves as well.
Understand that I do not rule out that this is an act of imagination that creates a way to relate with the spiritual/connective potential within me. It may be a matter of projection and reclaiming the projected spiritual potential. But whether it is an actual spirit assigned to me in such a way that I can call it my spirit, or it is the mere essence of my spiritual potential, either way, it works!
I must investigate other ways to get to know my spirit. Otherwise, I won’t have anything particularly useful to write about.
Your question was a really good one.
You mention prayer. If God individualizes His nature to work with the uniqueness of an individual, would not God Himself be at that moment akin to that person’s individual spirit? So, prayer, even if to Spirit/God seems to be a way to get to know “ one’s spirit.”

 

[otherbrother]

It is here, in this 'divine darkness' that we arise and in it we have our lives and our being, and the full, spiritual expression of that is in the simple and the everyday acts of warmth and generosity towards oneself and others, and the life of prayer which is the communion with that darkness.

I love the way you said this. It rings so true to me. Whether it is a deep part of mind or something beyond mind, something in us seems able to explore this “divine darkness” from which splotches of indigo light emerge (referring to my meditation experience). We CAN explore. And I love it. And I would feel good/purposeful if I was able to encourage others to love to explore it also.
Thank you for the inspirational way you put it to words.

 

[otherbrother]

I have decried the failure of mystagogy as a living practice within my own church, but then I have not seen much of an appetite for it.

Meaning that you also have an appetite (as I) for exploring mystical experiences and/or explorations other than standard prayer and loving others? Is that what “mystagogy” means. I haven’t seen that word before.

 

[otherbrother]

I think previously I have argued a kind of mind-being dichotomy – my being v your mind – and that was my mistake. I tend to regard them now as synonyms.

Maybe you and I are meeting somewhere midway between some of our previous arguments? I recently acknowledged that I believe that God and the God/Spirit realm is of a different dimension, but then proposed an individual spirit and a soul as portals allowing continuity between the other side and this side (because the whole accessibility and spiritual empowerment thing is still something I feel that I should promote, encourage). I realized as I was typing out those thoughts (about a spiritual dimension) that I seemed to be sounding more like Thomas!
We both seem to like Tillich’s “Ground of Being,” as a way to think about God.
Maybe you and I are more interested in the fountain flowing than in arguing about where spirit ends and physical being begins?

 

[Thomas]

The main way I am doing it is creating a mindset of looking forward to my “night school” sessions as I sleep/dream. I take advantage of a naturally “thin veil” situation. It seems to be a specific form of lucid dreaming in which I try to encounter a character or characters representing my spirit in each dream.

Have you looked into the Imaginal Realm in the spiritual literature ... Cynthia Bourgeault? The Mundus Imaginalis by Henry Corbin?

You mention prayer. If God individualizes His nature to work with the uniqueness of an individual, would not God Himself be at that moment akin to that person’s individual spirit?

I would say God is, inevitably, the mystery of mysteries. I would caution the idea of God 'individualising His nature' because that leads many to assume they are, in some way, God, and also that there are qualitative and quantitative distinctions in the divine – an introduction of category – when the Divine Nature is One, Simple, and so on ...

... however, when one says "I", two things happen. One is that "I" stands in relation to others. I think, as developing people, we are conscious of others before we are conscious of ourselves. But in reality there is only one subsistent "I", and that is God, and that, mysteriously, God allows His creature to participate in that sense of "I".

The Fall, then, is when that "I" sought its independence and equality with that prior, singular and eternal "I" from which it rose, and in so doing sundered that primordiality, that recognition, that contiguity, between "I" and "Thou".

So, prayer, even if to Spirit/God seems to be a way to get to know “one’s spirit.”

Inasmuch as one's spirit exists as an interface, a veil, which is translucent, and reveals as much as conceals.

But all this is, on my part, somewhat speculative.

 

[Thomas]

Maybe you and I are more interested in the fountain flowing than in arguing about where spirit ends and physical being begins?

Ha! Nailed it!

 

[Thomas]

Because I'm an old hand and therefore have some allowance, I can post this link – the title explains its relevance:
The Kenotic Image: St Sophrony and Austin Farrer on the Imagination

 

[Thomas]

And as for my favourite theologian-of-the-moment, David Bentley Hart, one admirer noted:

"We walk in several worlds at once. Waking consciousness itself is a poetic construction of mind ... "

"We shouldn’t think of this in the modern 'multiverse' sense of parallel universes, but dimensions. Imagination is truth-bearing: not escapism, but a faculty for perceiving overlapping realities."