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Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#731

Post by kukkeliskuu »

I have been participating in a group for over ten years that studies the ideas of Gurdjieff.

It can be said to be spiritual, kind of a meta-religion. It is compatible with religions, and most participats practice something else as well.

From Gurdjieff my most important daily practice is "self-observation". I take on various aims to facilitate it. One example of such an aim could be "when walking, walk faster than normal". I try to meditate daily as well, but I am not so successful in that.

If you are interested, "In Search of the Miraculous" by Ouspensky is a good starting point.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#732

Post by bfuller »

nogridbag wrote: post #345
sam0x17 wrote: post #233

100% atheism. Was raised some kind of protestant I forget which one, and derived tremendous spiritual and psychological relief when I realized all of that was absolute nonsense at the age of 9. I knew I was gay at the time and wouldn't come out until I was 18 or so, but my life just got a lot easier when I removed religion completely. I also recall discovering increased moral agency -- as a Christian I had been taugh…

> I had been taught I could simply confess whatever and it would be forgiven I still remember the day at Sunday school when we had to confess. I was a good kid. I had absolutely no idea what to confess. I consulted my Mom who told me to "make something up". And thus my first sin, that I can remember, was lying to the priest.

I was raised in a fully evangelical tongue speaking, bible thumping, political shilling for george bush church, and I distinctly remember in bible school being made to accepet jesus into my heart as my savior over and over.

When I told the teachers I had already accepted him, they would make me do it again. Even at that young age (probably 6-8 years old) I was thinking logically, if accepting jesus as my savior gets me into heaven, why would I have to do it multiple times?

I'm a mystic now.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#734

Post by psyc »

bfuller wrote: post #732
nogridbag wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I had been taught I could simply confess whatever and it would be forgiven I still remember the day at Sunday school when we had to confess. I was a good kid. I had absolutely no idea what to confess. I consulted my Mom who told me to "make something up". And thus my first sin, that I can remember, was lying to the priest.

I was raised in a fully evangelical tongue speaking, bible thumping, political shilling for george bush church, and I distinctly remember in bible school being made to accepet jesus into my heart as my savior over and over. When I told the teachers I had already accepted him, they would make me do it again. Even at that young age (probably 6-8 years old) I was thinking logically, if accepting jesus as my savior gets…

Fortunately it’s an idempotent operation. I think.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#735

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

faebi wrote: post #691
sam0x17 wrote: post #233

100% atheism. Was raised some kind of protestant I forget which one, and derived tremendous spiritual and psychological relief when I realized all of that was absolute nonsense at the age of 9. I knew I was gay at the time and wouldn't come out until I was 18 or so, but my life just got a lot easier when I removed religion completely. I also recall discovering increased moral agency -- as a Christian I had been taugh…

Totally on your world view here. I was around 10 when I came across the Hubble deep field image as a gif. I proceeded to find it on google sky and I just couldn‘t get the mind boggling size of the visible universe into my brain while all of that supposed to be 2000 years old and only happen on earth. It blew my mind. One needed to scroll so hard only to reach that image which again has so many galaxies. And thats my…

Sincere question. How did you make the leap from the vastness of the universe to nothing? I have sensed the nothing but not in this way. How did it happen for you?

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#736

Post by skinney6 »

namero999 wrote: post #657
skinney6 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going thru Bernardo Kastrup's site now. Thank you.

I think he shines best either in his books (the first, "Rationalist Spirituality" is very short and gives a good intro to his thought) or in YT interviews. The one with John Vervaeke or Curt Jaimungal are good picks. The blog is interesting but tend to also be an outlet for personal tantrums :) I've started a telegram channel to chit-chat about this topic. Anyway I guess the only relevant thing I want to share is tha…

I've just watched a few of his vids he links to on his site, very interesting. I just read https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2016/04/conquering-fear-of-o... so well put. I'll read Rationalist Spirituality. Thanks again. Fascinating.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#737

Post by sam0x17 »

skinkestek wrote: post #631
criddell wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. He could have left at any time. He can return any time he wants. And how can his death on the cross be actually considered a death? If he was dead, are we to understand that for those few days there was no god overlooking all of creation? It seems to me…

Warning, I'm not a specialist in this. My only qualifications is that Christianity has made me happy and I have read and listened a lot. > I've never understood what part of the crucifixion was a sacrifice. Jesus is literally a god. He knew he would end up on the cross before he even took on human form. All the more agony. (See also below.) > He could have left at any time. Yep, but as far as I understand then it wou…

I always found this whole bit farcical.

Firstly, if God is the one who exercises judgement in the first place in the form of who goes to heaven and who does not, then (as is written elsewhere in the Bible) what God says is good, is good, and what God says is bad, is bad, for no intrinsic reason other than God says it is so. When I do the good, I want to do it because I have some stock in the moral value or principle being maximized, not because some deity arbitrarily commanded it.

Secondly, if God is the source of all moral judgement, then he could just arbitrarily decree that repentance is now a thing instead of making Jesus suffer for our sins. In the same breath Christians assert that moral values come from God (if God says it is good, it is good, if God says it is bad, it is bad), but that Jesus had to suffer, to what, to make God decide to be more lenient with how he interprets our sins? How is that supposed to be inspiring? Makes God seem sadistic more than anything. But then when God contradicts his own moral values (i.e. murder in some of the old parables) Christians of course once again say no, this isn't immoral because God says it is not. Which is it? Either morality is whatever God says it is, and Jesus dying on the cross served absolutely no purpose, or God is a sinner and cannot/should not contradict his own moral tenants (but does because there is no one there to "judge" him), in which case Jesus dying on the cross makes some sense because morality is some force above and more powerful than god.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#738

Post by kazinator »

tibbar wrote: post #683
kazinator wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"100% atheism" isn't a spiritual practice. It's just the absence of belief in the existence of gods. A rock is 100% atheist, yet in all likelihood doesn't have spiritual practice. You can have a spiritual practice under the umbrella of atheism, as long as it doesn't involve any kind of belief in gods. Whatever that practice is, that practice isn't identified with the atheism itself.

I think this doesn't reflect the standard spectrum of usage for the term. For instance, if you look up "atheism" in Merriam-Webster, the second definition is: "a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods" By that definition, a rock is not atheist since it has no philosophical or religious positions (ha, I hope so, at least). Honestly, I'm a little confused by…

> strict understanding

Rather, a definition of atheist which allows rocks to be atheists by the fact that they lack philosophical positions is logically less strict, or weaker than a formulation that additionally requires the ability to hold such a position.

A predicate which adds restrictions is stronger, which can have disadvantages.

The weak definition lets me assign a value of true or false to is_atheist(P) for any P whatsoever. (Other than perhaps some kinds of P that create a some sort of syntactic self-referential paradox.)

> By that definition, a rock is not atheist

atheist is the negation of theist; it means "not theist". If a rock is not a not-theist, it must be a theist. Well, we don't want that, so we need to complicate things with three-valued logic, whereby is_atheist(P) can be "undefined" when P is a rock. Or else be happy with partial functions: P = rock is outside of the domain is_atheist.

The atheist rock is a rhetorical tool that uses the simplest possible definition of atheism and strictly two-valued logic.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#739

Post by Scarbutt »

carterac wrote: post #606
colordrops wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing is an experience sought after by those practicing "nondual" meditation. Tibetan buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism are the major traditions in the east that practice this, though zen could also potentially be considered nondualist. I'm currently in a class taught by Michael Taft that takes a syncretic approach to teaching nondual meditation [1]. One of the best books on the subject is "Nond…

Try googling 45 Days to Awakening course, a new and improved version of the Finder’s Course. Their data shows something like 65% of people reach that state after 45 days, up to 85% after a second course for total of 90 days. It sounds way too good to be true and I didn’t believe it myself until I did it and it worked for me, and then for several friends I convinced to take it. It took me over 90 days to get there (ha…

Typical scam website.

Re: Ask HN: What is your spiritual practice?

#740

Post by omarfarooq »

xupybd wrote: post #725
omarfarooq wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Psalm 147:5 - Great is our Lord and abundant in strength;His understanding is infinite. > For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things (1 John 3:20). > Known to God from eternity are all his works (Acts 15:18). > The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3).

I agree with all of that but none of those verses use the term omniscient. The idea of omniscience leads to paradoxes like the one above. Can you know what it is to be non omniscient and be omniscient. I think God can choose to understand and know what He wants to know. If he chooses to forget sin, He can. Meaning the strict definition of omniscience would not apply. I'm no theologian or philosopher so there is a goo…

> I agree with all of that but none of those verses use the term omniscient.

If the axis of your response is going to be this, then I suggest we only continue speaking about the Bible on the level of Koine Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew for the Old.

Since you want to be maximally true to the words. As do I.

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