Post # 2
The following are some observations I have made about what I refer to as a grounded spirituality as differentiated from conventional spirituality.
- I believe that you do not have to posit a transcendent deity to be a spiritual person.
- Blind faith runs the risk of being a thinly veiled rationalization for projecting ones final authority onto external real or imagined authorities.
- The purpose for this projection is frequently used to avoid the responsibility for asking and answering the biggest questions of life: i.e. who am I and what do I want based on ones lived experience and not exclusively on blind faith.
- There is a relatively simple formula guaranteed to result in world peace if universally adopted. Universal peace would be realized if every human being were to accept the responsibility for descending into their inner space - identifying their inevitable splits and divisions that reside there - and initiate the necessary steps to systematically work on ordering their personal chaos. In intimately engaging in this process there would be little energy left over in trying to force others to submit to ones individual or collective arbitrary will.
- In referring to conventional spiritual matters there is a wide spread follow the leader preoccupation with the organizing concept and the organizing experience of at-one-ment. These concepts are linked in the cliche phrase "everything is connected with everything else." This simplistic notion tacitly assumes that the quality of this interconnectedness is benign and all together to be valued in its own right.
- I understand the point that is being made. However I also understand that I personally would not like to be connected with everyone and everything. Universal connectedness may lead to the obliteration of differences wherein generalizations reign supreme over critical distinctions. In such extreme atmospheres individual liberty can easily be snuffed out by the tyranny of irrational mobism.
- In referring to conventional spiritual matters there is a preoccupation with the after life. I mean no disrespect when I state the following: that a focus on what may or may not come in an after life seems to me to be a gigantic waste of precious time and energy. Consider the following: if life persists in some form of consciousness then in fact there is really no death at all and we will continue to live; or there is no consciousness in which case death really is a fact wherein the play of life finally and totally ends.
- If the former we will continue to react, reflect make choices, and interpret our experience; if the later, we will have no more concerns. In either case we either persist or we don't. To my knowledge, testimonies and beliefs to the contrary, no one has demonstrated clear and convincing evidence that fully explains in detail the grand mystery once and for all.
- Thus my actual experience informs me that all I know for certain is that I am indisputably alive at the moment and do the best I can with what I have to make informed judgments enabling me to live a life that for me is as meaningful and rich as I can make it be for myself, my loved ones, and for all of humanity.
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