| 11/14/2007 11:12:09 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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jondalar
Reno, NV
age: 53
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In every culture there is a form of Connection to the creator and spirit world. There have been medical studies on the power of focused thought we call prayer that find it to be like a wonder drug. What forms of focusing thought have you experienced?
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| 11/15/2007 4:39:01 AM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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kellytoo
Moses Lake, WA
age: 57
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We have been taught we are ego, but we consist of the subconscious, conscious/ego and the higher spiritual mind. All three are necessary to function in this world. However, we tend to let ego be the boss.
I am a little confused by the question that was just posted. I use a form of meditation, dancing, and dreams as vehicles for finding inspiration. Hope that is what you were asking.
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| 11/15/2007 7:37:06 AM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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jondalar
Reno, NV
age: 53
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Hi Kelly
I did not form that thought well. Yes I was asking what ways we connect to our spirit. Ego is a noisy jay at times but can be set aside. I enjoy the dances of universal peace as a group connection. I am a doer and even in my work I sometimes find moments of being in the flow, in harmony with everything. I think those are moments when my spirit smiles.
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| 11/15/2007 12:22:57 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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Yes Jon I have felt that FLOW also. My problem is not being aware of how I got there. I am very much a baby in the spiritual as I was hung up on christianity and the LAW of it for so long and have only been vocal and found others willing to talk anything else on here.
I have never know a person in person who was other than christian and they admonished me for even suggesting anything else. So have always kept my wonderings and questions to myself until I wrote email to you and starting asking others again.
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| 11/15/2007 1:47:37 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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endlessly2
Pamplin, VA
age: 88
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QoH,
I can only speak for myself, and always that is all I ever do... even when I forget to say that. I think that many who would post in spiritual not religious, wisdom from around the world would not be ones to think that one way is better than another. I am not one to fight to prove what I believe to be true is so. I will walk away, as I did when I married at 19... and married at City Hall rather than fight about which religion was more right. People have been killed for centuries over such.. to me it is just plain silly to fight or argue about it. Debate, to me is arguement. One side is supposed to be proven more correct than the other. I won't partake in it.
What I see in religions is the wisdom in the story of the blind men with the elephant. Each blind man could only tell the part of the puzzle of what they all felt to be the elephant. Each was right.... none complete.
I think all of us are like that, too.
Edited because I realized I thought faster than I typed and I missed words that made it make sense.
[Edited 11/16/2007 3:55:26 AM]
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| 11/15/2007 3:43:16 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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I agree I say often I know nothing only have feelings and do not even trust those. All I can say at this point is I do know the things that are not acceptable to me and that is where I am, but can not let go of the idea that there has to be some kind of intelligence running this ship we call the universe. That is the only logical conclusion I have come to. I do not rule anything out except so called devil worship and atheist.
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| 11/15/2007 3:44:32 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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I guess we can discuss here since we do not have a forum. 
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| 11/15/2007 6:30:52 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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kellytoo
Moses Lake, WA
age: 57
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Yes indeed, who needs our own thread to talk about spiritual matters. I don't trust my feelings either, but do trust my emotions because they are connected to our spiritual center.
Feelings Versus Emotions
The capacity to emote appears to be a uniquely human one. Why would I make this statement? Because emotions are feelings that have had a judgment added to them and the only minds that can judge are those of beings that view the world as separate from themselves. Emotions serve no positive part in awakening. Rather they serve to confirm the false identity of the one who is experiencing them.
Now, it is often at this point that a huge amount of resistance wells up in people, for talk about dropping emotion feels akin to living life without passion or vitality. Nothing could be further from the truth. So let’s see why that is so. The truth is that human beings, like all other material creatures, are powerfully sensate. We have the capacity to feel all that goes on around us and within us. Our five senses respond to gross energies and our inner intuitive senses respond to subtle energies. So much comes to us that we have a mechanism within our brains to filter out much of what arrives sensually at our door of consciousness. Our five senses detect visual, auditory, olfactory, aspects of taste and tactile sensations. Our inner senses detect ease and dis-ease; known and unknown – however one wants to distinguish in words a change from balance to imbalance. All senses are acknowledged by humans as feelings. We are highly feeling-based organisms. The closer we live to our true state, the more we use all of our senses, and the less we need to put a description to them, and most especially a judgment on that description.
We are always sensing energy and its changing nature. If we were to eat a hot pepper, we would notice a change in our mouths from a normal state of taste to one characterized by a taste we’ve agreed to call “hot.” So in that experience, we felt energy change and we described that change. The description isn’t truly necessary. It seems to be a product of a our verbal capacity, but already such description begins to create separation because it is based on the need to describe to another, something we are not aware of them experiencing. If we were more in tune, we could sense everyone experiencing the hot pepper and that would be sufficient.
The true problem arises when we take this behavior one step further and attach a judgment to the description – “hot” is good or bad. For this is saying in other words: I like or I don’t like and what becomes the focus of this experience then is not eating a hot pepper but my experience of hot peppers. Judgment seals separation by having us continually appraise the world with us at its center. Rather than experiencing the world, we limit life to experiencing only ourselves.
Let's see what happens then, when we turn to the inner senses, which are a more subtle affair for sure. Let’s say we walk into a room and are immediately drawn to someone. Unbeknownst to us, we are sensing energy and if we are in tune with that sensing, we will allow ourselves to be guided by it. We have the capacity to live life from this mode: sense and be led. It is infallible, unfettered, and without fear. It is the way the natural world lives and interacts. It results in living life as an adventure without worry or torment. That is IF we can keep our false self out of the experience; or said another way, if we could just experience something without feeling the need to self reference it. But living from ego, if we even allow ourselves to be led at all by this inner feeling, we invariably want to apply meaning to it, for example: feeling drawn to someone can mean, I like this person;or, it could mean they are good/trustworthy etc.. And meanwhile we are applying the same system of thought to all the others in the room we are not drawn to and reversing the meaning. So we have then created a roomful of people, many of whom are now suspect and potentially troublesome. Our ease is gone, our fear arises, and our desire to grasp the "good" and reject the "bad" takes the bulk of our attention. In other words, we have moved from feeling, to emotion, and once again locked ourselves out of the kingdom.
Descriptive words for various feelings are not the problem. In fact, when we are at a point where we are moving back and forth between spiritually awakened and asleep, we can use these descriptions of feelings as guide ropes that we can pull ourselves along toward truth. For example, if scripture or teachings tell us to cultivate gentleness, we can sense within us the internal environment that one could call gentleness. We know what we feel like when we are interacting with the world from a place of soft resilience or gentleness. And we can “locate” that sense within ourselves if we become still and quiet. Doing so allows us to regain an inner feeling state that serves awakening or being. It brings us back to a state of balance.
But instead what we tend to do with such information as cultivate gentleness is “we” determine what behaviors would indicate gentleness (regardless of whatever war might be raging inside us) and “we” force those behaviors on ourselves, achieving for a moment perhaps the appearance of gentleness. But we cannot retain the essence of gentleness that way and soon return to whatever state pushed us to use gentleness as its punishment or its reward. In other words, we choose gentleness as an emotion with its accompanying behavior, and experience the world in a totally false manner. Said another way, we choose a mental solution as opposed to allowing ourselves to be guided by an inner feeling.
To feel the world from truth is to experience it from the perspective of being one with it, of belonging. Think for a moment at how touched we are, how deeply we experience within ourselves the beauty or power of creatures interacting in the natural world. Stop for a moment and sense the longing within you to feel a part of that, to belong, to know life as we can sense that the birds, deer or bears know life. That is how we were meant to live, to know ourselves as a part of everything rather than as this alien being that feels like it is on the outside looking in. We need to both drop emotional responses as a choice in our lives and open to our inner intuitive feelings that are with us 24/7. Use whatever tools seem to assist you to do just that and drop them for new tools as you increase your awareness. All of that is but the practice that leads to dying to this false self and opening to what we truly are. Losing emotions does not mean losing the meaning of life. Rather it means gaining the true experience of life for all time.
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| 11/15/2007 6:32:49 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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kellytoo
Moses Lake, WA
age: 57
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Oops, lol, the other way around, regarding feelings versis emotions. Can ya tell I am about asleep...
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| 11/15/2007 7:38:44 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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Maybe that is why being in nature is such an easy place to find the feeling of being a part of. I have felt that towards humans too. I like the way you explain, for me it makes so much sense.
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| 11/17/2007 1:33:20 AM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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Got to keep this one from getting lost too Yall.
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| 11/17/2007 4:51:17 AM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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kellytoo
Moses Lake, WA
age: 57
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Hi Queen, just wanted to say that I didn't personally write the piece on feelings vs emotions, but it is one of my favorite items I like. Yes, it does explain simply a little of what the heck we are about. I think many of us are much more at ease and in touch with the real part of ourselves in nature. It helps to unclutter the constant racket in our minds and for me, even going outside and looking at the stars at night, helps me feel more connected to all of life.
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| 11/19/2007 7:44:24 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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Yes I think when you realize that you are all part of the whole it does change us. And as far a forgiving, to forgive someone else is the same as forgiving yourself or even the Creator because they are the same as you.
[Edited 11/19/2007 7:44:56 PM]
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| 11/20/2007 6:30:21 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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jondalar
Reno, NV
age: 53
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Hi Kelly
I have reread the post on feeling and emotions and have not come to a clear understanding of what is being said. I do know that most of our bariors to experiencing this joyful world are in our head and many are in the rehlm of emotion attached to the memory.
I have been wondering recently about self-forgivness. many people beat themselves up for years over a poor choice made in life. The Christians offer forgivness of sins and this is comforting to many, yet still many cling to thier mistakes and beat themselves up with them.
In what ways have you moved through your poor choices? what tools, thoughts, beliefs alow you to move on?
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| 11/20/2007 9:47:50 PM |
Spritual not religious, Wisdom from around the world. |
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queenofhearts61
Seymour, IN
age: 62 online now!
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For me it has been accepting that I am just exactly what I am supposed to be. I am not a mistake nor do I make mistakes but I am just as I should be. And so is everyone else. Wheather we see it or not does not change the fact. If we were not exactly what we should be we would be someone else.
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