Spiritual Stages Advice?

[donnann]

Again, we are shown that mind must be conquered, it is the very mind which is Satan - the adversary. Yet, where is information stored? How can you go beyond the mind, how can you encounter your true self, when you remain confined to the mind? This I call sin, anything which is intended to save the mind, for as long as the mind remains the master, you remain distinct from God, you continue to miss. Jesus says repent, return to God, Krishna says we must dissociate with all doing, see that the only doer is God, that we are all merely characters he is playing. Buddha simply says all separation is illusion.

Please understand.

Christian and Jewish texts call the putting on the divine mind.

 

[Lunitik]

Christian and Jewish texts call the putting on the divine mind.

What is its nature?

Can you be anything but divine if you have no mind distinct from this?

Keep in mind that in this experience the mind is no longer distinct to your body at all, you can now watch it flowing through those nearby as well - thoughts, emotions, everything that arises from mind.

Essentially, your experience has ceased to be confined to one body.

What are you?

 

[Persona]

I am past all the elements and am at the stage of the source element..I call this the crystal element or crystal light.

I'm not sure what elements you are referring to.
But if it works for you - great!

 

[Persona]

God is neither of these, though, these are human attributes.

God is that one which watches the thoughts.
God is that one which observes the will.
God is that one which is aware of feelings.

God is the perpetual witness, yet he is untouched by any event...

Maybe it's because I'm a mom & am forced to find the most practical way...
I don't think we should try to separate our "ego" from our experience with God (however you define God).
I think they're together for a reason & they need each other to function best.

 

[Persona]

...Nothing in the world is black and white, all is a shade of grey. As I have said, intent is what matters, deeds are mostly irrelevant.

I agree, partly.
Like the Zen story about luck... how you never know if it's good or bad luck until you look back & see how events & influences unfolded.

I do think deeds are very relevant though.
IE: A marriage certificate is more of a blueprint of intent & the deeds following that are what make up the marriage.

 

[Persona]

It is a great metaphor for the spiritual journey, unraveling the layers of your psyche and looking at what is at the center, very good

Yeah... it sounds so simple that way.
In reality, it can be very painful & shaking to the core, to let down some of these facades.

 

[Persona]

Therefore God is NOT a PERSONA ---and we humans cannot expect a "Personal Relationship with God" because God is Impersonal.

But Lunitik is a person. No?

Bhaktajan,
Is your person doing as well as your persona?
What are you really trying to say?
Just speak (or write) your mind.

Truth is that which causes influence.
How we interpret words, even if we interpret them "wrong" - if they have influence, they have some truth.
How we interpret, appreciate & resonate with God - is more important than understanding who/what God is, IMO.

IE: I respect if someone lives a better life & is happier for worshiping Jesus, a personification of spirituality.

To me, God is ATTRACTION - as Aristotle explained - only way a Prime Mover could still be "Prime" & affect change. Or as Paul Tillich explained, God is that which we worship, or our ultimate concern.

 

[Lunitik]

Maybe it's because I'm a mom & am forced to find the most practical way...
I don't think we should try to separate our "ego" from our experience with God (however you define God).
I think they're together for a reason & they need each other to function best.

Without ego, you are not separate from God.

Ego is the only division, but it looks strange, perhaps it will be clearer if I say both ego and God are merely concepts?

My whole endeavor is bring people to a state of empty awareness, free from the concepts of the mind - to simply see things as they actually are. In this there is a miracle, existence itself becomes your subjective experience. All the notions you have read about God are in this experience, but how to come back to and retain the ego?

Ego must fall, at least briefly, to encounter this... once it is encountered, you will long to learn how to reside there. Yet, it does not affect life outwardly, it only brings a different flavor, it makes life absolutely fulfilling. You realize this has always been what you looked for. It was you all along, but we grope outwardly for it, seeing this, you will kick yourself!

 

[Lunitik]

I agree, partly.
Like the Zen story about luck... how you never know if it's good or bad luck until you look back & see how events & influences unfolded.

I do think deeds are very relevant though.
IE: A marriage certificate is more of a blueprint of intent & the deeds following that are what make up the marriage.

I do not believe in luck, for me it is merely a poorly executed transition

Deeds are the outward expressions which first arose - perhaps subconsciously - as a particular intent. Intent is a constant thing, it is impossible to act without some intent first arising.

Do not get me started on marriage though

 

[Lunitik]

Yeah... it sounds so simple that way.
In reality, it can be very painful & shaking to the core, to let down some of these facades.

That's the whole point: to shake to the core!

Yes, it can be very painful for some, there is almost a feeling like you are losing part of yourself somehow - even though perhaps you don't want it, still it is part of you. In this respect, I was somewhat lucky, or perhaps I merely dove in head first. For me, life itself became utterly pointless, in everything I saw the absolute impermanence to an almost exaggerated extent.

This primed me to let go of the ego, the layers, absolutely, to not even question because I already saw this as not all there is. I knew there had to be something more to life than just occupying yourself until you die. Fundamentally I saw there had to be something basically wrong with how I saw the world.

I was absolutely ready to die to find this out, so giving up myself in a mere contemplation was not difficult. Yet, all of a sudden, it possessed me - just pure love.

 

[Lunitik]

I do not wish on anyone the lowest point that I went through, it was pure hell - depression doesn't even begin to describe it!

What happened though, this I long for all to encounter, it was simply sublime... divine.

Still it is with me, this is what your soul probably imbibed from my words.

 

[Persona]

...False ego means accepting this body as oneself. When one understands that he is not his body and is spirit soul, he comes to his real ego. Ego is there.

False ego is condemned, but not real ego. In the Vedic literature (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.10) it is said, ahaḿ brahmāsmi: I am Brahman, I am spirit. This "I am," the sense of self, also exists in the liberated stage of self-realization.

This sense of "I am" is ego, but when the sense of "I am" is applied to this false body it is false ego. When the sense of self is applied to reality, that is real ego.

There are some philosophers who say we should give up our ego, but we cannot give up our ego, because ego means identity. We ought, of course, to give up the false identification with the body.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Krishna says in the Gita:
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Chapter 7 Verse 4
"Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego — all together these eight constitute My separated material energies."

Interesting, thanks for sharing this, Bhaktajan.
From this, I gather that the process of sorting through one's ego attachments (cognitive distortions/shadow self/dark night) is a process. It doesn't happen over night, but over a lifetime. I don't think I or you, or anyone else will ever reach "perfection." We will always fall short of our ideals, whether those ideals are now or only realized after the fact.

I don't know if I'd want to give up identification with my body... not that I'm a body builder or anything. My body is my LIFE - it's not who I am eternally - but it's my connection with life for my lifetime. This is what I'm confused about in the spiritual stages mentioned. Dark night of the senses - is supposed to be realizing the 5 senses are not the ticket to what's most wanted. Yet, at the same time, the body is considered the "book of life" - which is recorded everything about us from the past up to the present (at least). It seems imperative to be in tune with what our bodies are trying to tell us - so we can be present, healthy & vital.

One of the puzzle pieces (besides other environmental influences & heredity) of health (or lack of) is "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he."
How we think & feel affects our physiology...
IE: If I have sinus problems, it may be a psychological reflection of "irritation to someone, usually someone close to you." Then there's a healing affirmation possibility: " choose to declare peace and harmony with all the individuals around me. I surround my self with love and goodwill" - or something more custom-made.
Healing Affirmations - Metaphysical Causes of Disease and Illness

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
When you said/wrote that we should give up false identification with the body - that doesn't mean we disown or completely detach from it, does it?

 

[Persona]

... I know that I am the female half of someone else that will make me complete and never alone again or lonely...

I wouldn't count on it.
Yeah, it would be better, than being alone.
But it's not quite the Cinderella story either.

 

[donnann]

I wouldn't count on it.
Yeah, it would be better, than being alone.
But it's not quite the Cinderella story either.

I believe in the fairy tale. Sometimes belief is all you need.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

I don't know if I'd want to give up identification with my body... not that I'm a body builder or anything. My body is my LIFE - it's not who I am eternally - but it's my connection with life for my lifetime. This is what I'm confused about in the spiritual stages mentioned.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.
When you said/wrote that we should give up false identification with the body - that doesn't mean we disown or completely detach from it, does it?

Correct. Self-actualisation by way of performing one's own dharma (occupational/obliged Duties)---secular mundane duties 'self-lessly' ---for one's own self-preservation.

I am referring to the "Ultimate Examination" aka, "Death".

Death of the body is the ultimate & final test ---of purpose of existence.

At death, a] thoughts on the mind at the time of passing, plus, b]the summation of the works/acts performed during life, plus, c] one's Desires ---these factors determine the calibre of one's next birth.

Thus, via cultivation of meritorious sensibilities (aka Good Karma) and the sublime one gains certain entrance privledges to higher stratums.

Or, via cultivation of self-centered selfish greedy pursuit of the mundane for the explicit urgent desire to be pleasured at all costs at all times ---not knowing that lower species of life afford all sorts of gratification based of "sense gratification unbridled by civil restrains".

Birds can fly over mountains! So what they have a diet of raw vermin. It's fresh meat.

It's the mis-identification of the present body one is living-in that causes "false-ego".

If one is seeking to "Merge into the primeviel Nirvana state of Brahman Sleep" ---it requires merging one's individual-indivisable spark of being aka a 'Soul'.

Of course, becoming aware of one's soul [via Classical Silent Mantra Meditation] leaves one feeling aloof and self-content and thus, pre-disposed to less worldly pursuits.

But I am referring to the aspirant that has achieved 'atma-rama' 'self-satisfaction of the Soul by the soul' ---this is where the blissfull nature of the soul is felt ---thus the mind plays secound fiddle to the desire to stay intune with the Soul's contented repose in and of itself. Yet this can happen today and still leaves years and years of secular life ahead of one's self . . . so service . . . to other souls seems natural.

At the time of death, one can flunk the exams or ace them.

I know I may be initiating more questions than I seem to answer ---maybe.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Bhaktajan,
Is your person doing as well as your persona?

Wait!

This is the most relevant question!

The soul is an individual indivisable living force ---in the world of material energy. Material Energy is actual inanimate dead matter.

When a soul enters the material matter ---life is seen to come alive.

The word "Person" is indeed the present ego self-identification borne of the very body one has. If the person in question is White, black, short tall fat skinny smart dumb rich poor old young sick muscle-bound ---it all shapes one's Ego. That sense of self is not eternal; it is temporal. The present body is borne of past acts; While it lasts it affords certain stratum of interpersonal exchanges; when death arrives all bodily traits are lost.

The spirit-life force that eminates from one's individually alloted & assigned soul-being ... is actually a "Persona".

I am proclaiming [as per the Vedas] that the definition of a "Soul" is "Persona".

Each soul [as per the Vedas] is a Persona seeking for the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the Ultimate mystery of Life.

Yet, we Souls seek out repose in other persons. This is the defacto proof of the Nature of the Mystery of life.

We souls in the material world are ultimately in pursuit of the audience of the Fountainhead reservior of all things Persona, Godhead who is a Person Himself. God is the Original Person. We souls are Persons. The spark parts and parcel souls serve the Supreme Soul with ettiquette that is specific and absolute ... as is God Himself a very specific Absolute Persona with Transcendental & Unlimited self-born Prowess. This is the simply definition of theism where God is His own Person by definition.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

What is a cult?

this, I have experienced.

Wait!

This is the most relevant question!

A cult is an institution headed by an absolute despot.

A cult is where a charasmatic leader issues idiosyncratic dictums based on his own whims and has followers that blindly carry out orders proclaimed by the cult leader.

In the present day sense, A cult requires a Living Leader that is known to be acting outside the injunctions of the Text Books, the concensus of contemporaries & even one's own traditional mentor.

A cult is famously known for acts commited by followers of self-appointed visionaries with uncommon insight ---yet usually, the so-called extra-ordinary stature of the Clut Leader is due to Vainity to impose one's will via a follower of insipid and vapid will and detemination.

Cult leaders are leaders of week-willed people.

Mind you, I am referring to classic Elmer Gantry type religious despot wannabes ---I am referring to classic science of propaganda and sales and marketing and novela plots or TV cop shows or local Politicans or pimps or Big-Pharma or Monsanto or Ronald MacDonald or staurady morning cartoon commercials.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

Is the Self a skill or profession? The ways of worldly knowledge cannot be applied to the inner reality.

Wrong. Even a Child Prodigy is riding the coat tails of their own past Karma (works).

Check this out:

A child Prodigy plays the Rachmaninoff concerto on piano at age 8 ---but the kid never demonstrates the ability to build a Steinway piano from stratch.

The little Girl sings on Song Competition song like a seasoned soprano ---such a God-given talent did not include the PA System nor the Production Values nor the Network Transmissions via Space Satellites. The miracle of the Little Kid's virtuoso virtue always requires back-up by all sorts of workings. It takes a Village to raise an enlightened person.

The kid learned in a past life from a maestro ---the kid gets further on in the same expertise and voction in the present life ---the podigy kid's skill is facilitated on a classical piano ---the piano was contructed by a family company with trade secrets passed down by tradition.

The way of spiritual knowledge are never by the acsending path; but by the descending benediction from elder saints.

The way of spiritual knowledge are documented and passed down by disciplic succession. As is all "Knowledge"

The son of a magestrate cannot be awarded the same post as the father unless the proper qualifications are had.

Vedas = Knowledge.

 

[Lunitik]

Vedas = Knowledge.

You are correct to a point, and yet only "knowledge" which is accepted by Hindu's are included when the Vedas are discussed. Go to any Vedic site on the internet and you will find Hindu scriptures like this is the only source of knowledge...

I still say knowledge itself doesn't help with any attainment, in fact it serves to hamper attainment because now the ego feels it knows something.

 

[Lunitik]

A cult is an institution headed by an absolute despot.

You have discussed the stereotype of cult, but the dictionary defines cult as any school which is not orthodox. Of course, it is not surprising you bend the definition, because your belief system is absolutely a cult.

I have a deep love for Osho, certainly you will be correct to call him a cult leader, yet for me this is a good thing - it was absolutely necessary for fundamental change in the religious landscape, I see no problem with anything he has said or done to this end. Every religion which is today considered orthodox was once a cult, there is no exception here. The problem is because religions have made people basically ignorant, any charismatic fool can gain a following. One which is prevalent in India right now is Nithyananda, even cultures used to Guru's are susceptible.

For me, there is nothing wrong with the cult, it means things are progressing. The stereotypical cult leader is a symptom of something basically wrong, people want to follow, they want to embrace a cause or movement, they are devoid of the ability to think for themselves.