Alternatively, this is a point of view that can help you accept your over-religous family/parents , from a logical, metaphysical perspective. So read on if you need that in your life right now, but really this is my personal understanding of it. And it helped me find both believers and non-believers beautiful in their own right, oddly. weirdly.
It just is and we waste a lot of time shitting on each other. (??)
So here’s the mechanics of devotion, faith and surrender, without me trying to convert you or place any systemic dogma in you. Hope that I’m clear with that, so let’s begin.
01. We’re all consciousness. Awareness, the Observer
This has been discussed in a lot of both western and eastern philosophy all stating the same Truth from different points of view, and different semantic language. Like the five blind men describing different parts of the elephant we’re all talking about the same thing in cutely different ways.
The nihilists cum atheists will say “everything is inherently meaningless, we’re the only ones who put subjective meaning into things”.
The yogic/mystical traditions will ask “when we are of no thought, who is the one left observing? who is this consciousness dreaming things awake? how do awaken to it’s Truth ?”
The scientists will say “in quantum reality, a particle will only exist by the sheer principle that it was observed. A particle can only be recorded once light has interacted with it, but the mere interaction with the light already changes the particle, makes it move towards another direction. Our reality is ultimately tied with the act of observation, perception… Everything is subjective. Even time and space, as proven by Einstein.”
((NOTE : awakenedvibrations.tumblr.com has a collection of very good articles on this, you can also check her tumblr out, she curates these fundamental topics very well with very readable articles that don’t make the depth of the discussion any less))
02. We’re all just trying to just expand this “awareness” this “self”
In yogic/mystical traditions we’re either (1) learning lessons via life through ‘burning karma’ thus expanding who we are (2) or hacking the whole shebang by learning meditation and being in touch with expanded awareness.
What is enlightenment really? I love the example sadghuru uses for this and I think it illustrates the whole concept perfectly. He asks the audience, where is he? They point to him on the stage, and he cheekily says ‘nonono, don’t you know I’m a mystic?’ laughs and says ‘I’m everywhere’. Says that he experiences the rocks, the trees your own feelings as himself. As not separate from himself. This is Knowing. All-knowing.
This is why awakening experiences tend to be tied with expanded psychic awareness. You suddenly know, in a visceral day to day level the feelings of others. Experience their joys, hear their thoughts, see the “past” and “future”, feel the energy of a tree, IT’S BEINGNESS.
This is what trippy, on drugs folks talk about when they say they experienced ‘God’. The veils were lifted for a moment, and they experienced INFINITY, literally the boundaries of their small self were annihilated and they accepted and experienced everything as THEMSELVES and it’s this heady beautiful energy.
This is why “god” is described as “all loving”. Or why the Tao is beyond the dichotomy of opposites. This is why the sufis talk about the field beyond right and wrong doing.
In “God” and expanded awareness, everything is embraced as an experience of self. You are exploded into Oneness, and the unity of it all is what is described as Unconditional Love. In the yin and yang, it’s the empty circle. In western philosophy, it’s the stage of life where we’re all just actors both allowed to be evil and good, until we walk out of the allegorical cave and walk into the light of reality.
It’s all perfect, accepted, okay.
Part of the process. Part of the divine Game.
All manifest universe. (book recommendation: conversations with God, find a link in Special collection, it walks you through morality pretty well..)
03. Now, devotees and people of faith are only trying to explode into a larger awareness, with whatever they hold Sacred.
They literally channeled all this conscious energy into belief systems and constructs they’ve willed to be true. Their pantheon of gods, their articles of faith, their talismans, their sacraments , their rituals.
Everything is Real, because they said it is. They put a lot of restrictive rules into their religion, but it doesn’t make their God and practice less real and meaningful in their lives. It’s capital True, in their reality.
If you practice some lowkey magic, then this is just mainstream occultism, and label it as Religion. They tend to skim over the power of thought and belief but what they’re preaching is not so horrible. (love others yada yada) If anything I’ve met some energetically beautiful and powerful GOOD JUJU A+ priests but also shitty ones.
It’s not the religion that sucks, it’s mostly the people who are in it, who make it good or bad ((sidenote: I love priests who can perform a good mass, I’m mildly disappointed by the blocked bad juju ones who just bitch about the gays. expanded awareness my butt.))
so.
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This is how powerful every individual consciousness is, it can makes ANYTHING. REAL. So the strategem of these souls who want to explode into god are basically.
(1) construct the highest possibility in this “God”
(2) explode into it
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What about those who don’t believe in it? That’s very valid. They say there are two paths to enlightenment, either everything is sacred or a miracle or everything is meaningless and absurd. (enter nihilists and chaos magicians). Both are TRUE. both are valid, it’s part of the play of opposites that both are a thing in this universe.
They say the enlightened must kill their gods and realize truth. Never been there, but you could observe this line of thought in multiple cultures. When you read how the enlightened talk, it’s just isness. No holy men, no gods, no nothing.
So there’s nothing to be squirmy about. When your mother insists on praying for you, her path is just as valid as yours and there is no contradiction for you to allow her to expand in the way that she chooses. This is how she chooses to experience “love”.
It doesn’t need to be true for your reality, but it’s true for hers and we must accept or at least live more gracefully with this paradox of opposites. That people have different rules and realities from yours and that’s okay.
I realize that this is a very niche topic but one I care very much about. I love the stoic scientists, seekers of the day, but I also admire the amazing energy of a brahman doing ceremonial circles around a temple after being dipped in water. We’re all part of the same dance. The shepperd tending sheep, the math teacher teaching class.
mmmmm.
Personally I lean towards the devotionary route lately, the one that asks to surrender into the mystery, a personal experience of the mysticism of everyday life. But I’ve went too far before and now I’m just accepting that we could be odd mixes of the two. Like a spectrum and a variety of life that which we are.
Maalia
Maria Mison 