Your religious/spiritual journey

As this is an age related thread, I am only 74!

A test of faith.
Before we go out with the Street Pastor team at 11.30 pm, we pray. Part of our prayer is, please Lord, place in our path the people you need us to see. Lord, if there are situations where we don’t know what to do, please help us and guide us to do your will. Once we have placed the night into God’s hands, we can go out, feeling at peace. The most important part of our prayer, is continually giving thanks for all the good things that happen

I was out with our Street Pastor team recently, with three remarkable ladies, about 3 in the morning, a fight broke out next to our Muslim run kebab shop. There were around thirty people involved; a couple of lads were being really battered, and covered in blood. Two big lads drew up in a car, one of them went to the boot and took out two heavy ratchets, one in each hand.

I told him to put them back in the car, there are cameras, and you will go to prison. He ignored me and went towards the fight, swinging the ratchets. I was pushed over in the commotion, when I stood up, both the ratchets were dropped almost by my feet, I was able to pick them up and hide them. We stopped with them for over an hour until the police came.

I truthfully cannot explain the sense of total peace I experience in these situations. It is beyond my understanding. I know I should be feeling fear and worry, I know I should really walk away. I could not do this kind of voluntary work without a faith and trust in God. I give thanks that in over fifteen years, none of us have been hurt. We pray to an awesome God.
 
EricPH said:
As this is an age related thread, I am only 74!

A test of faith.
Before we go out with the Street Pastor team at 11.30 pm, we pray. Part of our prayer is, please Lord, place in our path the people you need us to see. Lord, if there are situations where we don’t know what to do, please help us and guide us to do your will. Once we have placed the night into God’s hands, we can go out, feeling at peace. The most important part of our prayer, is continually giving thanks for all the good things that happen

I was out with our Street Pastor team recently, with three remarkable ladies, about 3 in the morning, a fight broke out next to our Muslim run kebab shop. There were around thirty people involved; a couple of lads were being really battered, and covered in blood. Two big lads drew up in a car, one of them went to the boot and took out two heavy ratchets, one in each hand.

I told him to put them back in the car, there are cameras, and you will go to prison. He ignored me and went towards the fight, swinging the ratchets. I was pushed over in the commotion, when I stood up, both the ratchets were dropped almost by my feet, I was able to pick them up and hide them. We stopped with them for over an hour until the police came.

I truthfully cannot explain the sense of total peace I experience in these situations. It is beyond my understanding. I know I should be feeling fear and worry, I know I should really walk away. I could not do this kind of voluntary work without a faith and trust in God. I give thanks that in over fifteen years, none of us have been hurt. We pray to an awesome God.
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Brother!! 😍
 
Aupmanyav said:
Yeah, good and bad are dependent on the society and the person.
Being an atheist, I do not believe storage of 'karma' or on past and future lives. What we do affects us and others too even after our death. Karmas may not die, even if the doer dies.
We learn by many ways. Not only by our own experience, but by seeing the effect of actions of other people.
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I was surprised that you don't believe in Karma, or past and future lives. So I read back and discovered your adherence to Advaita, which made sense. I like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's saying that "we aren't humans having spiritual experiences, we're spirit having human experiences" which seems to me pretty close to Advaita.
I do think that atheism and science both have a great deal in common with religion - they both come with dogma attached and unacceptable areas of exploration.
 
Aerist said:
I was surprised that you don't believe in Karma, or past and future lives. So I read back and discovered your adherence to Advaita, which made sense. I like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's saying that "we aren't humans having spiritual experiences, we're spirit having human experiences" which seems to me pretty close to Advaita.
I do think that atheism and science both have a great deal in common with religion - they both come with dogma attached and unacceptable areas of exploration.
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As an Advaitin I would agree with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

I'd also like to point out that it's @Aupmanyav's identification with atheism, not his identification with Adviata, that affects his lack of belief in the storage of karma and future and past lives. The majority who subscribe to Advaita Vedanta, including me, recognize a karmic account and rebirths, though they understand that these are appearances in transactional reality resulting from time, space, and causation (Maya). In Reality, there is only Brahman.
 
Aerist said:
I like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's saying that "we aren't humans having spiritual experiences, we're spirit having human experiences" which seems to me pretty close to Advaita.
I do think that atheism and science both have a great deal in common with religion - they both come with dogma attached and unacceptable areas of exploration.
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I would not say that. My 'Advaita' does not believe in 'soul'. Advaita, like every other thing in Hinduism, comes in various flavors. It is one's pick.

Atheism, 'advaita', science, must eschew dogma, it is dogma which does not allow us to get it. Truth is not all that difficult to arrive at.
 
Niblo said:
A Vintage Year, my young friend. A Vintage Year. 🍾🥂😎
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Your adolescent years were shaped by the 50s. For me those years were shaped by the 90s. Haha! I already feel a world away from today's TikTok generation! I cannot imagine what it must be like for those born decades before the digital age.
 
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Ahanu said:
The terms "good" and "bad" reappear repeatedly in your post.
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The concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fit quite nicely into my belief system.

I believe in what I call ‘universal consciousness’, which I see as being at a much higher level of consciousness than human consciousness. The way I see it, this universal consciousness has its own clear idea of what it good and bad.

Ahanu said:
Is it through our own lived experience that we realize whether or not our actions - from this life and previous ones - are good or bad?
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I believe that all of us are on the path to heaven, then enlightenment, and then nirvana. To me, if something helps us move along this path it is ‘good’, and if something causes us to lose progress along the path it is ‘bad’.

But the crux of your question relates to whether we can tell from our own experiences if something is good or bad. I think this is the most difficult way to know these things accurately. Many people do things they think are good but are actually bad. (Just look at the evening news.) Many people are unable to accurately determine good and bad on their own, so they must rely on an outside source for accuracy.

Ahanu said:
Without a signpost, we have no awareness of good and bad.
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Universal consciousness can tell us quickly if an action is good or bad

"Stored up" where? In the house of consciousness?
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I believe everything that has ever happened is recorded in a type of ‘universal YouTube video’ which is contained within universal consciousness. The way I see it, Judgement Day does indeed happen. After we die, when we are Judged, we sit and watch a ‘video’ of everything that happened to us in our last reincarnation. When all of these events are measured against universal consciousness, it is easy to see the degree to which our last reincarnation was successful.

Ahanu said:
I would really like to hear an explanation of karma from the perspective of neuroscience.
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Science only deals with things in the observable physical world. But I believe events also occur in the astral world, the mental world, etc. Karma has ramifications in all of these worlds, and a karmic understanding of events in the physical world is only a part of the picture.

Personally the concept of karma plays no role in my spiritual journey.
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As long as you do good things and live a good life, you are making progress in your spiritual journey, which is a good thing, and you do not have to put any other names or labels like karma on what you do. A good Christian, a good Muslim, a good Buddhist, a good Hindu, etc., are all making progress towards heaven, enlightenment, and nirvana.
 
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Ahanu said:
I cannot imagine what it must be like for those born decades before the digital age.
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You had to make the effort to talk face to face with family, friends and neighbours. We had to do things together; and share things together. Now it is probably easier to talk to a total stranger across the world, who we will never meet; and who we will never share anything face to face. Like this forum.
 
EricPH said:
You had to make the effort to talk face to face with family, friends and neighbours. We had to do things together; and share things together. Now it is probably easier to talk to a total stranger across the world, who we will never meet; and who we will never share anything face to face. Like this forum.
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Yes. In those days a good neighbour was a trusted friend, someone you could share joys and troubles with. In many ways, part of the family. Today, a 'good' neighbour is one who doesn't give you grief!
 
Niblo said:
Yes. In those days a good neighbour was a trusted friend, someone you could share joys and troubles with. In many ways, part of the family. Today, a 'good' neighbour is one who doesn't give you grief!
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Even when they may have believed in different religions. There are stories galore in India.
A recent story: https://kashmirlife.net/in-south-kashmir-weekend-saw-a-muslim-cremation-of-a-kashmiri-pandit-266674/

Kashmiri-Pandit.jpeg
 
Niblo said:
It was peaceful. And folk talked to each other....face to face 😉
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It was certainly different. But was it really peaceful?
Things are different today, I hear every mother say (song of the 1960s). There's been war in large and there were small fights, bad gossip, and good things as well. Not so much has changed, but certainly the reach of our actions is less focused today, and the people of today waist more time in unimportant things.
 
SalixIncendium said:
Is universal consciousness exclusive to the human mind?
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Exclusive? No. Every human who has died and gone on to a higher level of consciousness (although no longer “human”) is also part of universal consciousness.

All human thoughts are part of universal consciousness. Any separateness we feel from universal consciousness (and from other people) will disappear once we achieve consciousness at a higher level.
 
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