Can you be spiritual without being religious?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality
During late medieval times the meaning broadened to include mental aspects of life, while in modern times the term both spread to other religious traditions[14] and broadened to refer to a wider range of experience, including a range of esoteric traditions.

Regards
DL

 

I cannot answer that question because it really makes no sense (sorry). It may help you understand this if I tell you it's like asking "which sunshine are you speaking of?" or "which gravity are you speaking of?".

The realized mystics, many of which have been well known and well respected Christians, confirmed by their own direct, immediate experience what the bible says:

John 17:21-23 - "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us"

1 Corinthians 6:17 "But the person who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him."

Gal 3:28 - "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

1 Corinthians 12:11-12 - "But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body ("soma" - the whole; the entirety), being many, are one body: so also is Christ."

Ephesians 4:4 - "There is one body ("soma" - the whole; the entirety), and one Spirit"

Colossians 3:11 - "Christ is all, and in all."

Is that clear?

 

Eternity passes in a blink of an eye. Time is irrelevant in the spiritual world. Do you think it would be a curse to be one with an all-encompassing God for eternity. I'm not talking about an old man with a white flowing robes standing at the gates of heaven checking to see whether we have an invitation or not.

 

Then you are saying that St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhart, Dionysius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Catherine of Genoa, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Francis of Assisi, Henry Suso, Richard Rolle, Julian of Norwich, St. Teresa of Ávila, Marie of the Incarnation, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Fr. Thomas Keating, Swami Vivekananda, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abhedananda, Muktananda, Ramakrishna, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Prabhavananda, Sivananda, and hundreds more were "living a delusion", not to mention Jesus.

The whole point of spiritual awakening is in the discovery of what you don't know and isn't apparent, and is even contradicted by worldly experience.

 

So you are speaking of God the Holy Spirit? Just looking for clarity.

 

But you have absolutely no idea what unconditional love is until you experience it. Then you know it is not an emotion; you then Know "I am love".

LOL!!!!! You have decided to reject it until it becomes worldly. LOL!!!!

You have proven it to be true; it cannot be understood by the worldly mind of man. It can only be Known/Realized. But this will baffle you I believe, because I believe you do not distinguish Knowing from knowing.

 

To the mystic, there is One. It cannot be "explained" to the human mind. It must be experienced or at least "glimpsed". So words are used that do not just clearly say it (there are no such words). Rather, mystics use terms that point, and which make you stretch your awareness, like in this case where some have said "there is One Life, one Being, One 'IS' ". And one thing we can absolutely say here is that One means ONE.

 

So, there is one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth...

 

The One has no sex and is not human, so he couldn't possibly be my father or your father.

 

"Father" in this case does not mean "male", it doesn't even have to mean human. It means "creator, preserver, guardian, protector".

Now watch, someone will want to argue about this....

 

If conscious, it would be a curse. If not conscious, who cares, as that would mean that we have just returned to being star dust which is what we are made from.
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"Time is irrelevant in the spiritual world."

If you mean in our spiritual thinking, I agree that time should not be considered. If you mean that there is some kind of spirit world, then how can you know that such a realm even exists?

Regards
DL

 

Indeed, but that does not send one into some supernatural realm.

Many more than your list would not agree about even knowing anything of the supernatural. The foolish belief in the supernatural is fairly recent and has not served us well at all.

http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Note the more Eastern flavor of what Jesus really taught and that the church has suppressed.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

This explains that concept in detail.



Regards
DL

 

Not to argue, but if you look at all the old Gods, even the Jewish one, you will note that they are mostly all androgynous as they were to represent both the male and female aspects of mankind. This is mostly since the Bronze age. Before that, for about 20,000 years, the Goddess' ruled.

Regards
DL

 

Very nice dodge sir! It's just you, and you would rather not answer. Got it!

 

I am typing this on my phone so don't expect lengthy quotes from anywhere from me.

Now you've got it.

 

And?

 

True - but none of your adjectives explain what he is and all of them diminish what he is. And I just hate calling every Catholic priest 'father' and all that nonsense.

 

Just for your files buddy as well as to inform that not all religions have tried to take the feminine out of God.

Regards
DL

 

Indeed. We should have rid ourselves of that misogynous patriarchal nonsense a long time ago.

Regards
DL

 

I am still trying to wrap my head around the term, "spiritually minded atheists."

It sounds a bit like, "right-handed southpaws"--or any other oxymorons.

 

You are tying spirituality to some supernatural entity and I see that as a mistake.

We are all born atheists before the religions get their putrid hands on us. To think that spiritual thinking is somehow connected to the vile mainstream God is counter intuitive.

If anything, there is less spiritual thinking in the mainstream religionists than atheists.

You do not see atheists starting Inquisitions or Jihads. They rely on moral arguments instead of murder.

Regards
DL

 

As if you can explain what God is.

Nobody has a problem with calling an M.D. or a PhD "doctor" but they can never bring themselves to call a Priest "father".

 

They can't marry, not that it's required to sire a child but most of them are gay and the vast majority will never ever be fathers and none of those nuns are my sister.
No one can explain what God is.

 

No, and yes, but you would have to think like the ancients before literal reading of myths and the idolatry that comes with that before Christianity and Islam became idolaters.

Simply that God is the best rules and laws to live by.

Even if some God magically popped up, we would not be able to physically follow him/her/it, but could follow the rules such an entity could lay out for us.

That is how the more intelligent seekers thought before the literal reading of myths began.

http://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Regards
DL

 

No one believes me and you wont either but: I had a near death experience and got a glimpse of 'heaven'. I was alone but was not lonely. I did not have a body but I was conscious of myself. I was in light, in a perfect light which I understood to be God, with perfect peace, perfect sound, no wants, or discomfort. I became a part of everything. It was glorious. But before I was in the spirit, or in the light, and in the blink of an eye, I travelled back through time to the very point of creation. When I 'woke' up from this experience, I was on my knees. There really are no words to describe what eternity or heaven is like, except glorious.