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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#241

Post by polishdude20 »

skinney6 wrote: post #119

Not long ago in my new apartment after breaking up with a long time girlfriend I had an amazing experience while meditating. The odd thing was I never really meditated back then. Something just told me to do it. I was led on an internal journey that showed me some things about my self. One, don't turn away from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Two, don't judge yourself. Three, the ego or this idea of myself is an…

I sometimes have a similar feeling to you with my sense of self but rather than an expansion into infinity, it was a shrinking of my "soul" or a shrinking of me the viewer and letting my body do the outside world experiencing. It's like I retreat into a tiny control room in my brain where nobody can see me or hurt me and I let my body do the work of experiencing things as I watch. It's kind of similar in that my body becomes one with everything and my self shrinks so much that it's nothing.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#243

Post by gbuk2013 »

plinkplonk wrote: post #73
gbuk2013 wrote: post #16

Chi Kung and Kriya Yoga. The former takes care of all my health and well-being needs and spills over into the spiritual practice side. Th latter does whatever it does on the spiritual side and also spills over into health and well being. One is practiced with the aim of achieving something the other sort of practices itself. :)

Which system of Chi Kung(if you don't mind) ?

Shaolin Wahnam - been at it for about 17 years now. :)

We don't have a syllabus for Chi Kung but here's a list of some of the groups of exercises taught and some brief theory as to their uses: https://shaolin.org/general-2/five-animal-play/play09.html

I mostly stick with 4, 11 and 12 on that list - find the more advanced things still a bit overwhelming for more than occasional practice.

Happy to provide more detail if you are interested.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#244

Post by mikercampbell »

I used to be devout Mormon, and a hardcore one at that. It was woven so deeply in my reality, that everything had spiritual significance for me.

A few years ago, I encountered history, documents, and truths about the religion that were never presented to me. Since then, I've slowly, painfully, removed myself from the religion, and removed the religion from me.

It's extremely painful to go from a space where everything is eternally, deifically, infinitely of value to "nothing actually matters".

I was diagnosed with PTSD this summer from the whole affair, as it was truly traumatic, and there were times that I almost didn't make it in the most literal sense.

But I've pieced together significance slowly and surely over the years. I've learned to slow down, love deeper, participate in the demanding process of finding and acknowledging beauty in this world, and have found spirituality in my own ways.

"The Anthropocene Reviewed" by John Green was a huge influence on my current flavor of spirituality (as it's constantly shifting). I'm sure the book means something different to everyone, but for me, it really broke down the need to work to build a habit of awe, and look for the things that stop you in your tracks. Observation and conscious efforts to find meaning and beauty are how I find my spirituality.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#245

Post by hackingthelema »

bckr wrote: post #213

I'm into magick. So a lot of what I do is observe my thoughts and intentions and direct my attention/emotion/passion/sexual energy towards the most beautiful and joyful subset of those. When I'm particularly certain of a desired outcome I will "cast" for it, occasionally doing a bit of sorcery: drawing funny pictures and generally doing wizardly stuff. I also do "continuous divination" AKA leaning heavily into apophe…

Fortune cookies are one of my favourites, too. I tend to use coin flips a lot. Occasionally I'll draw a rune or a tarot card, but I find I don't always understand what they're trying to say until after it's happened.

> In particular I pray to Ganesh to help me let go of negative things I'm holding onto (this was a beautiful outcome of therapy mingling with my spiritual life);

I always find it fascinating which gods magicians end up on. One person looks to Ganesh and Inanna; another to Odin and Hecate; another to Lilith and Satan; another to Jesus Christ alone; and they're all linked in their quest for occult knowledge and experiences. I suppose it depends on their own divine pattern and current 'balance' needs.

Was it 'Low Magick' that Lon Milo DuQuette mentions his work with Ganesh? I remember he had a Ganesh-focused, light-hearted invocation and banishing in one of his books. Was it, 'Pop goes Ganesh', to the tune of 'Pop goes the weasel'?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#247

Post by paxcoder »

friendly_chap wrote: post #46
prometheus76 wrote: post #34

I am an Orthodox Christian. My day begins with prayer, as soon as possible after I wake up. Prayer consists of reading (or reciting) prayers from a prayer book, followed by 100-200 Jesus Prayers ("Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!"), followed by 12-25 prostrations. I then read the daily scripture readings indicated by the liturgical calendar. At noon, I usually read a Psalm in front of my icons (I work from home)…

Wow! As someone who at some point in life was intensely meditating (nowadays less so) your routine reminds me of my habits, ie. falling asleep meditating vs praying etc, meditating upon waking up etc. Interesting how we can be so different yet similar!

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#248

Post by hosh »

DocTomoe wrote: post #112

After a psychedelic experience, I have come to have a weird combination of philosophical Vedanta Hinduism, Daoism and Buddhism, with some more animist ideas sprinkled in. My spiritual practice is to make myself aware of the world as a system and framework, but ultimately the meaninglessness it has, through meditation several times during the day, but usually at least in the morning after rising and at night before be…

I also had visionary experiences and also had come to an amagalation of different philosophies and religions, united by a monist view.

You say system and framework, what do you mean by that?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#249

Post by asiachick »

I'll take the downvotes but this entire thread is mostly depressing. If you want to know why people believe in 5G nanobots from vaccines or pizzagate you need only look here in this thread at all these people believing in nonsense.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j8llkjvURyg

most similar videos critique religion but to me, spirituality just means persoal religion and has many of the same traps, bad reasoning, and bad consequences.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#250

Post by scrapcode »

I haven't really found a practice or routine, yet, but I've always seeked out a higher power and it is something I am still interesting in. I quit drinking alcohol ~60 days ago which drove me to attend some AA meetings. An elderly gentleman while explaining his view of a "higher power" said that he just starts by saying his "please"(s) in the morning (eg. 'please help me through this speech,' etc) and his "thank you"(s) at night - even though he doesn't try to identify who he's speaking to.

Although I hope to eventually have an experience that allows me to have complete faith and belief in something more specific, I thought that was a good place to start. I haven't gotten into the routine myself, but I thought I would share.

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