This is a frustrating and sad state of affairs. Throughout time humanity has been given so much spiritual knowledge, which is always co-opted by the human mind itself. There are the most popular examples of teachings being distorted and mistranslated, like those of Jesus, Mohammed, and Siddharta Gautma, but there are even more modern teachings that are just as relevant.
I frequent another forum that discusses spirituality along the lines of "metaphysics". There is much discussion of channeled material. Even in the metaphysics arm of spiritual teaching, there is a co-option which is diluting the message. Always with humans there is a need to label and categorize. Always there is an obsession with words. Some people cannot see beyond the words. They get stuck on the language, as though a concept cannot be conveyed unless certain words are used.
How will you go on when words cease to exist?
Always there is a need to analyze, to obsess with facts and figures. I was once stuck in this mode. I went round and round with all the information i could take in, analyzing every bit, thinking that if i could just fit all the pieces of the puzzle into their proper places, enlightenment would suddenly reveal itself to me. This never happened. I got frustrated, and i gave up spiritual seeking for a long time. There is a point at which, unless you give up the rational mind, you'll hit a dead end.
And i see the same thing happening to so many people, and it depresses me. There is so much spiritual knowledge out there to be learned, but because people get stuck in their rational mind, the egoic mind, stuck on facts or words, they miss the underlying message, the most important part! You have to feel the truth with your being.
Truth is NOT words. It could never be expressed in language or with a bar graph (and i wouldn't say that if i hadn't actually seen it!). Language only goes so far in *pointing to* the truth. That's all language can do. Knowledge must be felt. And it cannot simply be believed, it must be known. Either you know or you don't know. If you're expending effort then you don't know, and you're only going to get so far that way. There is no effort involved in discovering truth and knowledge. There is no "trying" involved. When it comes to you, it's there! And there will be no doubt when it's there, because you will know, as sure as you know what you had for breakfast this morning.
When you're reading a philosophical or spiritual text, don't analyze it. Simply absorb the knowledge, like osmosis. If you don't understand a concept, don't analyze it. Just move on, keep reading, and when the time is ready for you to understand it, it will happen like an epiphany.
How is the teaching of love and compassion helpful if you are stuck on the meaning of the words "love" and "compassion", instead of feeling them? This is the kind of thing i'm talking about.
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"Lift a stone and you will find me, turn a leaf and I am there."
Thats enough for me.
-------------------- "Religion without science is blind, Science without religion is lame." Albert Einstein "peace is not maintained through force it is acheived through intelligence." Albert Einstein "Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." Thomas Jefferson "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson
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