One of the best way to experience spirituality is meditation. Every religion has meditation, some more than other.

Group praying of judaism is a form of meditation. Saint benedict of the christian and his order of monks meditate practically all day.

Buddism and hinduism are obvious.

The group prayer of islam is also a form of meditation.

In my opinion, meditation is practically the only way for you to be connected to the source. Connecting with the source is spirituality.

I went through a phase of being really into zen buddhism in my late teen years. I actually went two separate times to a buddhist monastery for a 9 day retreat. It was awesome. To see a whole community of monks and nuns, of an actual buddhist way of life was really special. In fact I don't think Id seen anything so amazing in my whole life. Its easy to say how happy they were etc, but this was special. The energy you picked up from the place was incredible.

Either way, I've kind of gone of zen buddhism a bit. Not that Im against it. It makes perfect sense. But I guess, it was really attached to my teen years, a kind of experimental phase. I did find, especially on my second trip to the retreat, that there were elements of of the whole thing I really didn't like. Perhaps more to do with the people that went on these trips. I found the type of people almost too stereotypically 'new age' and happy clappy. It almost seems too much of a fad these days.

And then, as entropy said, buddhism in the west is quite different to the buddhism in the east, but probably for many ways in the better. In the east Buddha is often revered as a kind of god, which, according to the texts, he isn't. The way I see it, the buddhism that came to the west was actually healthy, as it was able to free itself from the way it had changed in the east and go back to what Buddhism meant in a more literal way.

But anyway. What put me off to a large degree, was that 'buddhism' in this day and age carries too many connatations of new age and trendy. A kind of cool middle class liberal thing to do. My whole idealogy now is, get on with life, do things. No need to sit around pontificating the meaning of life and sitting on your arse counting. Whilst your doing that, people are doing things in life. I saw a lot of it as hot air basically.

In terms of meditation, im sure its good for you. I know its good for you. There are shitloads of scientific reports to back this up. Even though the actual 'point' of meditation, is not because you want to 'improve' but anyway.

Meditation is cool but there are loads of things you can do to give you the same focus. I dont think its necessary or even necessarily more beneficial then, sleeping well, eating well, having an active lifestyle etc.

I'm impressed by the knowledge and attitudes of many people posting here. I'm really not as knowledgeable as some of you, but I did read about non-dualism/advaita and buddhism. Also read some Ken Wilber and some of the atheist guys' books.

Quote:Either way, I've kind of gone of zen buddhism a bit. Not that Im against it. It makes perfect sense. But I guess, it was really attached to my teen years, a kind of experimental phase. I did find, especially on my second trip to the retreat, that there were elements of of the whole thing I really didn't like. Perhaps more to do with the people that went on these trips. I found the type of people almost too stereotypically 'new age' and happy clappy. It almost seems too much of a fad these days.

I didn't like many people into non-dualism either, including some of the "gurus". What you find a lot is that, even though you're supposed to poke through the illusions of the ego and become detached and enlightened and all that, people pretend to have done that (usually believing it themselves as well) to boost their egos!

Speaking of which, I had an experience once. This is probably going to sound really wishy washy new agey to most.

I used to have bad social anxiety. I was basically sitting inside all day, scared of everything. I read both eastern philosophy books and western psychology books. The western books said: "Everybody has social anxiety to some extent. You will never lose all of it. But you can improve your life a little bit so that you can be normal!" The eastern gurus said: "All fear is a result of ignorance. There is nothing to fear, for there is no self that can be harmed."

I digged the latter more.

At one point I got this conviction that a) my anxiety was based on ignorance/false beliefs, and b) that if I understood the false beliefs, then the anxiety would disappear. This was a motivational force that was quite strong. It didn't come from self-discipline but from a desire for truth. The quest for answers was satisfying in itself.

Gradually my desire to understand the core of my anxiety grew stronger. I started to think about it more and more. I would be aware of the thoughts and feelings I had while I was in a situation that made me socially anxious. I would do thought experiments to extract the beliefs that caused the feelings, then I would focus on those beliefs and disprove them if necessary. Whenever I solved questions about my anxiety, it was like I got one level deeper and there would be new questions popping up, which I could then solve, and go even deeper, and so on.

A lot of it was very logical. I would consider a problem and solve it from every possible angle, accounting for every possibility. When I thought about my social anxiety, I would need to account for any possible way I coud be potentially harmed by others' thoughts and judgements of me. For example, I spent quite a bit of time just solving the question "Can another person's negative thoughts of me affect me directly?" Of course I knew this was not true, because it would require psychic powers, but I noticed that on some unconscious level, I did believe this. So I would do thought experiments and think about it as long as it was necessary to be utterly convinced that other people's thoughts could not harm me. Sounds crazy probably, but it was necessary. Our feelings are often not rational at all. And again, this process was fulfilling in itself. I remember going to bed some nights in a row convinced that I would "solve" my anxiety the next day, and it was an awesome feeling.

After being consumed with this for some time, I got to a point where I was convinced, on an intellectual level, that all fear is, ultimately, irrational. This was inspired by those eastern philosophies. Fear makes sense from a certain perspective; it makes sense for your ego, basically. But there is nothing "absolutely scary". Nothing *is* scary. You can only imagine something to be scary. Yet, when you feel fear, you feel that there is something inherently scary about whatever you fear. As if the scariness is an attribute of that object or experience or whatever. I figured out for myself that this was an illusion.

So I was lying in my bed one night. It was very late but I was way too full of energy to sleep, thinking about this. I was convinced that all fear was irrational. I had straightened it all out in my mind; there were no more conflicting beliefs. Yet I still felt this anxiety in my body, a tight feeling in my throat. Even though I knew intellectually that nothing needed to be feared I still felt the fear in my body.

Then, suddenly, something happened. I "saw" how my thoughts detached from the feeling in my throat. Suddenly, the "anxiety" transformed into a simple sensation in my body. The conceptual part of the anxiety were reduced to mere thoughts, powerless without their attachment to my body.

I felt reaaaally strange then. I had a really warm sensation flowing through my whole body. I felt confused. I knew my search was over. I even wondered if this was what it felt like to be "enlightened". Over the next few days, I couldn't feel anxiety. Whenever I was in a situation that used to give me that feeling of anxiety in my throat, now it would come and leave an instant later, like a ball bouncing on the ground. It wouldn't stick.

All fear is an illusion. Our minds trick us. It's almost obvious if you think about it.

But then what happened? Well, I was an insecure, inexperienced, scared little teenage boy, green as grass. After a few days my fears crept back in. I was left only with a memory of all this, not with the effects. But his experience is part of the reason that I believe that those eastern philosophies that are about reaching enlightenment/realization/nirvana/destroying the ego have truth to them.

I stopped reading about spirituality for the most part because I believe I first have to LIVE and sort through my own emotional BS and mature, and maybe in 40 years I can go back to spirituality, when I'm ripe for it. Here I mean striving to understand the self and even striving to reach "enlightenment" with spirituality. Spirituality still plays a part in my life in a broader sense.

Phillip, checkout the book "Inner Life" by Leadbeater and your experience makes perfect sense once you read that book. I wish I could sumarize it here but its' entirely stupidly complex that even i only understand 50 percent of it.

I used to have extreme anger problem and one day, I simply solve it. I was given a tons of shit by my boss about absolute bullshit and it lasted in my system for days. One day, I realize I cannot fight it and i just let it ride it out and actually enjoy the anger. I enjoy the experience for what it is for a minute and it simply disapear and it its place, complete happiness.

Anyway, in terms of spirituality, the new modern movement is known as "New Age". New Age was largely founded by Alice Bailey under the guidance of Master Djwhal Khul's.

Alice Bailey was originally a member of Theosophy.

Master DJwhal Khul's was susposely a reincarnated soul of the great Confucius, if you so incline to believe in reincarnation.

Who else is a member of this "New Age movement"? Well, our favorite inner game Guru Eckhart Tolle himself as well lol.

The issue with discussing religion is that most people lump it all together into one homogeneous blob rather than considering that all religions consist of different interacting parts.

1. Subjective, personal experience.
a. Faith
2. Objective truth (dogma)
3. Philosophy.
4. Group Cohesion.

In certain religions, the subjective experience of faith is emphasized. The objective truths are presented as dogma with little evidence or argument to support them other then anecdotal stories, and followers are asked to accept their precepts on faith. Although when you delve deeper there are often intricate philosophical arguments developed based on these which make it possible to be of at high degree of rationality and still personally justify belief.

Other religions are generally more philosophical and emphasize personal realization of truth through practice, like types of Buddhism.

Meditation, in a sense, merges objective and subjective. We get closer to the objective by becoming more aware of all the subjective impulses within our minds.

Taoism is interesting because it is hugely philosophical. Eastern philosophy in general is extremely interesting, especially to somebody raised in the west. It’s a whole different conception of reality.

Islam and Judaism are much more about group cohesion. Many people are turned off by a lot of the dogma (myself included). But many people’s personal experience of it is often level headed and peaceful. There is nothing that forces you to take all of the dogma to heart, and no reason to do so unless you’ve found yourself in that small percentage of extremist/fundamentalist. Any group experience where you are all aligned is extremely powerful for each individual.

The problem these days is that many religions still try to cling onto their objective truth (dogma) in the face of an ever expanding science which finds its truths from evidence rather than ancient revelations. Constantly updating itself, inching closer and closer to a complete understanding reality in more and more areas. Some like Sam Harris think we are reaching a point where we can even develop a science of morality and avoid having to fall back on interpretations of ancient understandings all together.

Unfortunately, sometimes when you take dogma as metaphorical, outdated or false, it’s much harder to get any personal psychological benefits from it. So many people close their mind to scientific facts like evolution, carbon dating, etc.

There is value in studying all sorts of ideas which appeal to you. There is also huge value in scientific skepticism and objectivity, especially when it comes to claims about the truth of reality.

I just wanted to recommend a relevant book:
Thomas Campbells 'My Big Toe' (which is an acronym for big picture theory of everything)
I cannot praise it highly enough.
I'm not going to attempt to provide a synopsis but just urge that you check it out for yourselves!

that's my two cents

peace