Religion and Religious Type Concepts Thread

[Shannon]

Reading them as we speak, as a matter of fact. Not too helpful, though I'm only 32 pages into the first one. Been reading it most of the day, however.

I'm in the part where he's relating the case studies about people remembering past lives/the spiritual plane between lives.

I'm reading it with both eyes. I both believe it (pretend it's true) and don't believe it (compare what he's saying to my own experience that I can remember).

What is striking me as odd is how much people are talking about escaping physical pain and how peaceful and free of physical pain this spiritual world is, while I myself have no aversion to physical pain beyond it's discomfort. My own thing I'd rather be free of is emotional pain.

Then there's the spiritual guides, the soulmates, and the friends or close souls.

I have none.

Your statement that you have none is arrogant. You do not know if you have any. You have not yet met any that you currently recognize as being such, perhaps, and you may not be aware of extraphysical "guides" or whatever you choose to call them, but the truth is, you cannot say more than that. Whether or not you have any is unknown to you.

I am, at this point in my life, becoming ever more reclusive and have only 2 people I consider to be friends. Even then, only so long as they are in line with my own life's purpose. Should they become set on another path, I would not be sorry to be rid of them.

In other words, you are choosing to focus more and more on yourself, and in doing so, you are creating boundaries (walls, if you will) that block out various things, people and experiences. For whatever reason you choose to do this, it is your choice. It is about like drawing the curtains around a hospital bed and then claiming that there is no nurse because you cannot see your attendant nurse who happens to be standing on the other side of the curtain you put in place.

The people in the case studies seem comforted to be around people that they know, while I myself imagine that if this were true, I'd enter the spiritual world, hang up my coat, and greet my guardian:

"Alright." I'd say, "Done that one too, what's next?"

And we'd get set up for the next life.

Quite possibly.

Whatever I am searching for, or whatever comforts me, it is not companionship. I have known since I was a boy that I am looking for something beyond anything this world has to offer, and now (if I could guess) I'm getting bored with it (life on earth).

Boredom is a choice. You can always choose to find something that interests you. If you refuse to do so, then you are choosing the limitations that result in boredom.

I think, to be honest, that reality is what we make it, so me not believing in karma naturally has created a reality for me (or "bubble" around me perhaps) which does not include it.

Reality means different things to different people. What is real is what we make real by our beliefs, choices and actions, to a certain degree, yes. But the fact that we exist within a "field of energy" (for lack of a better description) that responds to our focus, thoughts, wishes and desires by becoming what we choose to make it, does not mean that there is not a larger "reality" within which that "sandbox" exists, which has different rules and actualities. Belief creates the personal reality, but not the omnipersonal reality. The only thing an individual can do about the actualities outside their own little "sandbox" are to create walls that limit that individual and help them ignore those external actualities outside their sandbox.

What puzzles me is how you, and you must know what power beliefs can have on a person's reality, can possibly believe or "know" that a one-all inclusive "karma" force exists beyond the power of ourselves. Just reading it in a book can't be the reason, otherwise you'd probably believe everything you've ever read before. So what is it? There's got to be something more, near death experience I'm guessing, from when you were sick.

My understanding of karma does not come from reading one book, or many. It comes from many books, many years of contemplation, many years of observation and many points of view on the matter being considered in concert.

I do not claim that my understanding is the end-all, be-all. I am confident in what I believe, because of what it is based on and in, but I always leave myself open to new possibilities, and my beliefs do change because I discover new things, have new experiences, and discover new points of view, which sometimes warrant enough scrutiny and withstand that scrutiny to actually make a change in my beliefs.

I recommended that book to you because it is the most condensed form of what it is that I know of. It is the closest thing I know of to a system of thought that accurately explains what I have experienced, what I remember, what I can do and so forth. If I thought it was right for everyone, I would insist that it was the end-all be-all, and that would be that.

But in my life I have come to realize that no matter what we think we understand, there are always greater degrees of subtlety and complexity to it than we currently know, are aware of or comprehend.

If the book does not resonate with you, then take from it what you please and move on. At least you will have a better understanding of where I am coming from.