Do we have a spirit and, if so, what role does it play in our relationship with God?

Yahweh kid said:
Can a person get to the presence of God (heaven) through the type of person he is, or how good he modeled Jesus?
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First unanswered question: Is existence of God/Gods/Goddesses or heaven/hell, a fact? Or it is just human imagination and superstition?
If you give evidence for it, we can turn to the next question: "Does God sends prophets/son/messengers/manifestations/mahdis to the world?"
 
Aupmanyav said:
First unanswered question: Is existence of God/Gods/Goddesses or heaven/hell, a fact? Or it is just human imagination and superstition?
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Neither .. it is not an empirical fact, nor is it necessarily superstition.

Theology is a bonafide region of study, with historical evidence to support it.
Scientific evidence is not the only type that holds relevance to human civilisation.
 
Thomas said:
I have experienced the same, riding my motorcycle ... Riding at night on a well-lit motorway, almost empty of other traffice, approached my turning and the desire was simply to keep going, just ride on ... I think it's along the lines of 'being in the moment'.

A zen sage was asked about the state of no-mind, and he pointed to a man, sitting on the step of his shanty dwelling, weaving a basket. His hands knew exactly what to do, 'he' did not have to interfere. He was not day-dreaming, he was engaged with his work ... The sage commented that the weaver was closer to no-mind than some of the most adept Zen practitioners.


Attachment to the world of things ... 'Monkey Mind' ...


Yes. The practice of detachment, from the world and from ourselves. The attachment to self is probably the biggest impediment to the experience of Self.


But a note of caution here, is that not attachment? The seeking of reward? The comparing of this state to that?

Eckhart said:
"The man who abides in the will of God wills nothing else than what God is, and what He wills. If he were ill he would not wish to be well. If he really abides in God's will, all pain is to him a joy, all complication, simple: yea, even the pains of hell would be a joy to him. He is free and gone out from himself, and from all that he receives, he must be free. If my eye is to discern colour, it must itself be free from all colour. The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love."
(Sermon IV, True Hearing, emphasis mine)

He goes on to say:
"The man who abides in God's love must be dead to himself and all created things... Such a man must renounce himself and all the world... And supposing a man had renounced himself for twenty years, if he took himself back for a moment, that man's renunciation would be as nothing. The man who has truly renounced himself and does not once cast a glance on what he has renounced, and thus remains immovable and unalterable, that man alone has really renounced self...

This second qualifies the prior, in the sense that 'all pain to him is joy' not because he delights in pain, nor in the obsequious idea that God sends pain as a test ... I think Eckhart is using hyperbole here to make a point. All pain is joy, all joy is joy, all is joy, because it simply is what it is, and such a man makes no more of it nor any less.

Eckhart says, 'dead to himself and all created things' then he is no use to man nor God. God did not put us here to demonstrate feats of 'detachment' by sitting on tip of poles or being buried in the ground or dwelling in caves. If one experiences true solitude, as a qualitative thing, not a quantitative thing, one can experience the desert in the middle of the city. Likewise, if one has to remove oneself from the hustle and bustle to experience detachment, one has not really attained detachment.

This is not a critique of monastic orders, the priory or the hermitage ... such calling is a vocation for the sake of the world, a living witness, even if in utter seclusion.

Eckhart says, 'Such a man must renounce himself and all the world' because only then is one free to serve God, as the Shema demands.

Such a path is a perilous path. Eckhart says, "And supposing a man had renounced himself for twenty years, if he took himself back for a moment, that man's renunciation would be as nothing." (Snakes and Ladders)
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This excerpt from a book I am working on might pull in the direction that Eckhart thought to be “perilous.” But it also might be a decent counter argument:

If we mistakenly see the Concrete Self as being all we really are, then that spiritual aspect of ourselves, our Connective Selves, is functionally the same as “God.” Both are perceived to be on the other side. Both are Unknowns from which we get something good.

The more spiritual we become, the less distance we sense between the sides. God is sensed to be with us in spirit, in our spirit. The advantage of psychologically “owning” (embracing) our Connected Selves is that it provides a consistent bridge between us and God. We even begin to see divinity, usually in the form of beauty, woven into this world.

Certainly, praying to God can, and often does, activate the Connective Self, with or without lucid awareness of that part of ourselves. It would be like a person moving his or her arms without being aware that he or she has arms. But awareness of the Connective “arm” of our being helps us connect with God more intentionally and, ultimately, more masterfully. Without knowing our spirit or Connected Self, we have less mastery of prayer or other spiritual/connective skills.
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I don’t think we need worry so much about ego contaminating spirit when spirit is stronger than ego. It operates from a deeper, interconnected, zone and can run circles around gross ego. It is finer than ego or monkey mind. It can go through it like a ghost passing through walls.
Of course that is if a person floats to the God-zone core of being. If he or she doesn’t go deep enough then what they identify as his/her spirit may actually be something else posing as one’s spirit. It would be similar to a false god. One’s true spirit is true to God. We can trust it because God made it and trusts it to help us connect with Him (Her, Whatever).
 
Aupmanyav said:
First unanswered question: Is existence of God/Gods/Goddesses or heaven/hell, a fact? Or it is just human imagination and superstition?
Click to expand...
That statement seems to rely on either/or logic when a both/and logic could conclude that mental identification of God, etc., is both imaginary (a mere version of the truth) AND true (containing the essence of a truth, such as a God Function). In the animated movie, The Little Mermaid, the crab character called a fork a “dingle hopper.” But it could have still functione
TheLightWithin said:
The Independent God believers?
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That God is independent of but not isolated from this physical dimension.
Not independent thinking God believers! Although I probably fit in the latter category. I’m not afraid to explore unproven concepts.
 
muhammad_isa said:
Neither .. it is not an empirical fact, nor is it necessarily superstition.

Theology is a bonafide region of study, with historical evidence to support it.
Scientific evidence is not the only type that holds relevance to human civilisation.
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God is not an empirical fact. Mohammad being the messenger of Allah is not an empirical fact.
So, what is the real fact? What makes this different from imagining it or superstition?
Who made theology a bonafide subject of study? What is the historical evidence for it?
A person claims authority of an imaginary God without providing any evidence, and people repeat the story till many ignorant people believe it to be true.
Perhaps Christianity would not have survived if there was no Paul. Perhaps there would not have been any Islam without the invitation of Muhammad by Jews of Medina.
 
Aupmanyav said:
Then, what detracts you from denying existence of any God?
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The fact that “God” came out of our minds means it has some sort of truth, perhaps a metaphorical expression of a mental/spiritual FUNCTION? Even if it is not “true” in any objective sense. Even Santa Clause is a meaningful metaphor of the spirit of giving. The Easter Bunny is about the surprises of potential, resurrecting hope and joy? Things imagined reflect coherent human longings and potentially met needs.
 
otherbrother said:
The fact that “God” came out of our minds means it has some sort of truth, perhaps a metaphorical expression of a mental/spiritual FUNCTION? Even if it is not “true” in any objective sense. Even Santa Clause is a meaningful metaphor of the spirit of giving. The Easter Bunny is about the surprises of potential, resurrecting hope and joy? Things imagined reflect coherent human longings and potentially met needs.
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I like Depok Chopra’s view of God as Pure Potential. Also like Paul Tillich’s Ground of Being. Together, I sense a FUNCTION worth utilizing, a “God” worth worshipping.
 
otherbrother said:
The fact that “God” came out of our minds means it has some sort of truth,
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We have to get some things straight and stop bad mouthing “mind”. A mind IS a terrible thing to waste. Number one point I’d like to make is that mind is NOT its thoughts. We seem to be mistaking the mind as the sum of its thoughts, when it really is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Thoughts are part-mind, not mind. “Monkey Mind” is a bunch of rapid firing thoughts that come out of the mind but are not the mind. Deep mind flows beneath and through its many thoughts. Deepest mind is the “spirit” of the identified mind. Deepest mind is the Mind Itself which is open to and seamlessly connected to every thing. It is in union with God as Universal Mind. So, perhaps I will consider Mind Itself as a third key aspect or “face” of God, interacting with Pure Potential and Ground of Being.
 
otherbrother said:
We have to get some things straight and stop bad mouthing “mind”. A mind IS a terrible thing to waste. Number one point I’d like to make is that mind is NOT its thoughts. We seem to be mistaking the mind as the sum of its thoughts, when it really is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Thoughts are part-mind, not mind. “Monkey Mind” is a bunch of rapid firing thoughts that come out of the mind but are not the mind. Deep mind flows beneath and through its many thoughts. Deepest mind is the “spirit” of the identified mind. Deepest mind is the Mind Itself which is open to and seamlessly connected to every thing. It is in union with God as Universal Mind. So, perhaps I will consider Mind Itself as a third key aspect or “face” of God, interacting with Pure Potential and Ground of Being.
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One of my “Night School” dreams last night cued up that line of thinking regarding the difference between mind and its content. I now understand that there was quite a bit of lucidity in the dream. A beloved pet (regular earthly me? Embodied me?) morphed from a horse to a ferret to something else much larger (Strange, but probably significant, that I’m mentally blocking on that now!) that was eating leafy vegetation off of trees (most likely banana tree leaves) as I moved with it toward a small reservoir ( not much bigger than a bathtub but part of a water system). The water was fairly clear blue but with a little debris. My nephew, Jared (a financially successful horticulturalist in real life) was explaining the scientific explanation for the morphing of my pet. I was perplexed about the fact that my pet was changing forms. But I decided that his explanation wasn’t likely credible. Around that time someone got in the tub-like reservoir. The water flowed through the reservoir into a smaller channel (with an indeterminate destination)
My interpretation: I was watching my own mental projections in the dream and saw that they could be modified, morphed, and were flexible objects instead of regular fixed objects. This was a partial awareness that I was dreaming and was creating the dream in real (ha ha!) time, I was amazed about how my mind could dream things up and change them. This was a clue/cue that my thoughts are NOT my mind. My mind is behind and into the image-thoughts. The unidentified persons going into the reservoir/tub was my spirit (or Deep Mind) reentering my body after moving about in a spectral domain (astral plane?). My consciousness was returning to its regular illusion of “reality” while I was in the process of waking up.
But some aspect of mind was sensed behind the dream and behind my regular wake state consciousness. I’m okay calling it spirit, but not okay calling it not mind. Deep mind and spirit seem synonymous to me. Anything beyond deep mind is none of my business. I can only work with what I can work with (deep mind, my spirit) and trust that whatever lies beyond that will work with me, assist me if I let it. I can’t see the Great House. But can see its doorway, my deep mind, my spirit.
 
Yahweh kid said:
Don't our intentions or sincerity change all the time, mostly depended on how we feel? What happens if our emotions is a bit off the time we die...... will we be Saved?
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Sorry to jump in on a question you asked someone else, but I view “saved” as meaning taking the smoother and shorter road instead of the rougher and longer road “home.” If we can manage to be at peace as we transition in the death process then we will be saved from a rough long road, whether the road is in other dimensions of reality or back here in this earthly dimension in the form of reincarnations. Same principle applies here on earth though: If I keep my head about me and choose wisely, I am saved a rough and hard road to the better outcomes I want in life. I won’t have to learn exclusively from “the school of hard knocks.”!
 
Aupmanyav said:
First unanswered question: Is existence of God/Gods/Goddesses or heaven/hell, a fact? Or it is just human imagination and superstition?
If you give evidence for it, we can turn to the next question: "Does God sends prophets/son/messengers/manifestations/mahdis to the world?"
Click to expand...
Can science prove there is no God? If not, it is no "fact" there is no God.
 
otherbrother said:
If we can manage to be at peace
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What do you mean by that? How do I know I am at peace?
otherbrother said:
whether the road is in other dimensions of reality or back here in this earthly dimension in the form of reincarnations. Same principle applies here on earth though
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Other brother, the fact of the matter is this, if we make dumb decisions and it causes us to transgress the law of the land we get punished, in some case the punishment is for life. According to your opinion this principle could also apply after death? I believe it can and it will be applied, and if we transgress the (spiritual) Law we can be punished for (eternal) life.

Some believe there is no spiritual dimension, because it cannot be proven, however science is not equipped to prove or disprove spiritual realities, as its methods are limited to the material world. What makes you believe there is a spiritual reality? Astral travelling?
 
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