Views regarding Spirituality

[Amur]

Started thinking that 'true' spirituality should be something which would incorporate the materialistic reality/enviroment. As I fail to see how there can be peace between the dualistic view where Spirituality is one polarity and Materia is another polarity fighting against each other. Though in a sense of a pressure buffer there might be some point in this view. Still I see a more peaceful solution where ones own spirituality would encompass the material dimension. This again leads to a place where the two would be united in peace. The material would be the tools required to manifest ones own spirituality, if they start clashing against each other there it seems to become an internal paradox or conflict.

Spirituality might very well be very subtle but I don't believe that only very subtle are real solutions to the problems people are facing in their normal mundane life, which is why I think that the two should be in balance with each other, and certainly in peace with each other. Fail to see why there should be an Eternal War going on between the two, it just doesn't make sense from a peaceful point of perspective.

If one sees that Spirituality would be Eternal and material conditioned reality would be temporary, then spirituality would include this material life-time.

What's your view on Spirituality?

[m1thr0s]

I picked this up from Ram Dass many years ago in his book: The Only Dance There Is
It is a kind of expansion on the axiom Thou Art That that looks at Subject (Spirit) vs Object (Matter)...

http://abrahadabra.com/images/isness.gif

The unifying hexagram is my adaptation, but I still like the basic spread...
We always have a choice with Spirit vs Matter. Just as this formula can be expressed as two interlocking (but separate) triangles, it can also be expressed unicursally (ie unified). There is nothing preventing us from forging this connection. It is a choice we have access to, the result of which can make a dramatic difference in our perceptions of attainment. Whether we choose the path of domination or integration has a lot to do with how we view these two grand triads. In one view these are locked in competition with each other, in the other they are actually the same thing coming from different points of view.

m1thr0s

[frater luciferi]

i am a spiritual being, I live in a spiritual world. the material one is that which counters my being. i would relate it to the old gnostic creation myth "the appocolypse of adam". the perfection was the void before the material world and in it divinity. the material world was a false creation and flawed made by yaldaboath- whom to me was a archetype of sorts of the figure of human "ego". spirituality is ones natural state returned to, while a material existance is a state of mind we are trained to. although i have read a few crowely quotes which have relayed similar thoughts on how "magick" pragmatic spirituality is in a sense a way of rejecting the material "paradigm". Perhaps if we were to mold the material world to a more ordered sense? instead of the chaos of the human jungle of predation? those i suppose whom are still seeking buddha in a statue might never find him, for they ARE buddha. (perhaps someone will get the zen joke?)

[Nnonnth]

Oboy I joined the right forum, I luuuurrrve me some conversation like this!

For me the spiritual and the material are completely intertwined and they are impossible to disengage from one another. The idea that we should (or even can) pursue one at the expense of the other is to me a great mistake that has 'never given satisfactory results' - A.O. Spare.

However, I do not believe that the two for humanity can ever be 'united in peace' exactly. I believe that we as individuals, as groups, as a race, can only deal more or less well with the fact that to some extent the upper and lower, Heaven and Earth as they say in Taoism, have different tendencies. It is our job as a species, I believe, to mediate between these two and by doing so we grow, and that growth in turn brings wisdom - but more mediating and more growth are the only rewards for the moment.

This is the reason why people like the Dalai Lama, who apparently is 'enlightened' in some sense and need not reincarnate, still does. 'As long as sentient beings are still suffering, I will remain to serve', he says - 'suffering' being what Buddhists call growth towards wisdom. He sees much of the game is still to play out and he wants to be still here, still learning - Franz Bardon was the same.

If not in peace then, in balance certainly - by the actions of our race the spiritual and the material are kept in balance. They are severely out of balance right now of course. Our present dilemmas and difficulties, so catastrophic in extent, are in my opinion the results of false teachings, bad understandings, ego-driven policies and so forth. But they were all our choices - we might have chosen differently.

In my opinion it is supremely important to differentiate human society on the one hand from nature, and the physical world in general, on the other. The natural world has immense wisdom and runs off a kind of instinct, developing without commandments and laws apart from those which arise naturally within it. Lao Tzu in tao te ching elegantly contrasts this with human nature, which, he believed, made more and more laws which resulted in greater and greater misery.

I find frater luciferi's view a strange one for someone with 'Lucifer' in his name! When you say:

>>Perhaps if we were to mold the material world to a more ordered sense? instead of the chaos of the human jungle of predation?<<

... I think both Lao Tzu and Lucifer would indeed disagree with you! It is only ourselves we need to mould, and I truly believe that moulding need only be to understand what we really naturally are and want - the 'Thelemic' law if you like, that we all have a 'True Will' and our job is to unfold it. This is the most natural thing in the world, and it does not need human rules to bring it about in principle. The way we order ourselves in practice is another matter, but Lao Tzu's solution was - get out of the way, do not try to carve the wood but understand fully the nature of the uncarved. I think he might have been onto something there.

I work alot with nature spirits and I use herbs alot. I am aware from that work of the tremendous beauty and value - virtue maybe - of nature. These beings have wisdom! Each herb has a voice that is meant for us to understand and use, each animal has a purpose also. It's NOT perfect - there is pain, there is alot of difficulty, and from this springs wisdom - but spiritual, I do think nature is that. It has wisdom we could use. So I cannot think the material and the spiritual are in any sense separate.

NN
PS But BTW, I did get the zen joke and I love zen.