What is Spirit

[Joseph Bernard]

There has been a lot rambling around in head about a topic that is difficult to express. I have been trying to come to terms with my sense of Spirit. I feel my spiritual life is a very personal thing. Not that it is private but more that my relationship with Spirit, God, Higher Power is only something I can have in my own way. The complicated part of this internal discussion is that I am unsure what Spirit is and if Spirit actually exists as something I can communicate with in some way.

Churches have their advantages. They have a very clear creation of images and stories they state are real. They have a book that to quote that is suppose to be the words of God. They have ministers that claim God speaks to them so they can let the followers know what is right. That provides order, rules and the correct way to look at things if you are a member.

Sometimes I wish I could just join a church and accept all the rules and beliefs and not question so much. But I can’t because I have my own moral compass; my own sense of the truth that doesn’t fit any church I have ever been too. I have a difficult time with the idea that someone else could tell me how Spirit wants me to act and be. I have to find my own way in understanding my relationship with the Source of the Universe. Without a doubt I know there is a greater source of wisdom and power in the universe then us humans. I know that there is some sort of infinite intelligence behind the magnificent creation of such beauty and vastness. I also sense that whatever that infinite creative force is, it is in me also. This force is greater then me and is part of me and all living things. How do I relate to this force? How do you understand this?

As you can see I have lots to further explore. I am very interested in your ideas. I will write more soon because I seem to be inspired to explore these questions at this point in my life.

[Drifter]

The Rambling in the head is the mind-chatter that is continuosly on.
Meditations or getting in touch with the "Still"-ness of the mind is preparatory and necessary for getting closer to 'God', for "He Is 'That'" Stillness within.
We are searching for 'Truth' and mind is not Truth but illusion.

Spirit is That of of the Divine God-head that compliments man as manifestation.
Spirit and man are the manifestation, and together comprise consciouness, whisch is the Son/sun of 'God'. 'God' is the Unmanifest or Absolute One without a second. The Pimal Point, The Uncaused cause. The Divine Consciousness and soul is the realtive/active consciousness as man.

Love
Drifter

[Alexander M Zoltai]

All that you say is the "food" we need to Wage Peace !!

~ Alex

[Joseph Bernard]

Thanks Alex, I have been in a very contemplative mood lately and deeply concerned about the lack of consciousness and heart in our elected officials and especially in the White House. I suspect Iran is next and the thought of that makes me very uneasy. If you haven't yet, check out my daily blog at www.explorelifeblog.com
and my creative designs for expressing peace at my wife and my site
www.peace-together.com

Have a pleasant weekend, Joe

[Joseph Bernard]

Hi Drifter, I appreciate your perspective which is expansive. It feels good to have a variety of viewpoints which share an underlying consciousness that is inclusive rather then exclusive. I find the term God to be so tainted by the Idealogy of the Conservative Christian movement that I tend to not use that term. I find in amazing that there is such arrogance and delusion around western religion. Let's be conscious as we can and invite that in others. Check out my daily blog as www.explorelifeblog.com.

I hope your day is going well, Joe

[Drifter]

The first 'battle'(too stong an implication as I'm about to use it), is between Spirit and ego.
Once "we" or "I" have distinguished, between The Reality and the illusion' as/within our own understanding the torch can be passed.
Love
Drifter

[Drifter]

The path that leads the apparent individual along to the cognition of The Spirit within, is the one of self-inquiry, or "who am I", alluded to by all the Icons of Antiquity expressing, sometimes esoterically and many times metaphorically, or pointing the way/the path for man, to the Liberation and Freedom of the soul from it's feet mired in clay.
There are many teachings which deal solely upon this self-enquiry, they include but are not limited to, Non-Duality, Advaita, Oneness etc.etc. each different approaches but with the same goal, much like "religions" but more so a 'philosophical'. For there are only Three True and equall paths, that of Devotion, that of Service, and last but not least that of Wisdom.
All Three are equal in His eye.

My own (as I am a person therefore) personal approach, is/was that of the last. "The I AM THAT I AM" teaching.

The esoteric utterance of the exoteric "I AM, The Light Of The World".
as Spoken by Jesus.

Love
Drifter

[Joseph Bernard]

I find that I am drawn to keeping things simple on a spiritual level these days. I have been blessed with much philosophy in my education and I have had some wonderful teachers along the way. I however needed to sort through all that. Now I like a simple walking meditation practice and to try to be in awareness throughout my day. In awareness I am present to the moment, to my Higher Self, to my heart and to my creative potential. That is where I like to be.

[Drifter]

Maybe this will help?

"We are all made of star stuff... It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." --Carl Sagan

GOD AS CONSCIOUSNESS-WITHOUT-AN-OBJECT
by John C. Lilly

Within the last two years I have come to know a man and his work who run counter to my own simulations and by whom I am influenced beyond previous influences. In 1936, Franklin Merrell-Wolff wrote a journal that was later published as Pathways Through to Space. In 1970 he wrote another book called The Philosophy 0f Consciousness-Without-an-Object. In studying his works, and the chronicle of his personal experience I arrived at some places new for me.

Wolff had been through the Vedanta training, through the philosophy of Shankara; he knew the philosophy of Kant and others of the Western world; and he spent twenty-five years working to achieve a state of Nirvana, Enlightenment, Samadhi, and so forth. In 1936 he succeeded in this transformation and with varying success maintained it over the subsequent years. He is an amazingly peaceful man now in his eighties. Meeting him, I felt the influence of his transformation, of his recognitions, of some sort of current flowing through me. I felt a peace which I have not felt in my own searchings; a certain peculiar kind of highly indifferent contentment took place, and yet the state was beyond contentment, beyond the usual human happiness, beyond bliss, beyond pleasure. This is the state that he calls the state of "High Indifference." He experienced this at his third level of recognition, beyond Nirvana, beyond Bliss. His perceptions in this state are recounted in The Philosophy of Consciousness-Without-an-Object.

In his chapter "Aphorisms on Consciousness-With- out-an-Object" Merrell-Wolff expresses his discoveries in a series of sutra-like sentences, The first one is: "Consciousness-without-an-object is." The culmination of the series is that Consciousness-without-an-object is SPACE. This is probably the most abstract and yet the most satifying way of looking at the universe which I have come across anywhere. If one pursues this type of thinking and feeling and gets into the introceptive spaces, the universe originates on a ground, a substrate of Consciousness-Without-an-Object: the basic fabric of the universe beyond space, beyond time, beyond topology, beyond matter, beyond energy, is Consciousness. Consciousness without any form, without any reification, without any realization.

In a sense, Merrell-Wolff is saying that the Star Maker is Consciousness-Without-an-Object. He does not give hints to how objects are created out of Consciousness-Without-an-Object. He does not give hints to how an individual consciousness is formed out of Consciousness-Without-an-Object. The details of these processes were not his primary interest. His primary interest apparently was in arriving at a basic set of assumptions upon which all else can be built. In this sense he is like Einstein, bringing the relativity factor into the universe out of Newton's absolutes.

If we are a manifestation of Consciousness-Without-an-Object, and if, as Wolff says, we can go back into Consciousness-Without-an-Object, then my rather pessimistic view that we are merely noisy animals is wrong. If there is some way that we can work our origins out of the basic ground of the universe, bypassing our ideas that the evolutionary process generates us by generating our brains--if there is some contact, some connection between us and Consciousness-Without-an-Object and the Void, and if we can make that contact, that connection known to ourselves individually, as Wolff claims, then there is possible far more hope and optimism than I ever believed in the past. If what he says is true, we have potential far beyond that I have imagined we could possibly have. If what he says is true, we can be and realize our being as part of the Star Maker.

It may be that Wolff, like all the rest of us, is doing an over-valuation of his own abstractions. It may be that he is generating, i.e., seif-metaprogramming, states of his own mind and those of others in which the ideals of the race are reified as thought objects, as programs, as realities, as states of consciousness. It may be that this is all we can do. If this is all we can do, maybe we had better do it and see if there is anything beyond this by doing it.

If by getting into a state of High Indifference, of Nirvana, Samadhi, or Satori, then one can function as a teaching example to others and it may be that if a sufficiently large number of us share this particular set of metaprograms we may be able to survive our own alternative dichotomous spaces of righteous wrath. If righteous wrath must go as a non-surviving program for the human species, then it may be that High Indifference is a reasonable alternative.

Setting up a hierarchy of states of consciousness with High Indifference at the top, Nirvana next, Satori next, Samadhi next, and Ananda at the bottom is an interesting game, especially when one becomes capable of moving through all these spaces and staying a sufficient time in each to know it.

This may be a better game than killing our neighbors because they do not believe in our simulations of God. At least those who espouse these states claim that these states are above any other human aspiration; that once one has experienced them, he is almost unfit for wrath, for pride, for arrogance, for power over others, for group pressure exerted either upon oneself or upon others. One becomes fit only for teaching these states to those who are ready to learn them. The bodhisattva vow is no longer necessary for those who have had direct experience. One becomes the bodhisattva without the vow. One becomes Buddha without being Buddha.

One becomes content with the minimum necessities for survival on the planetside trip; one cuts back on his use of unnecessary articles-machines, gadgets, and devices. He no longer needs motion pictures, television, dishwashers, or other luxuries. One no longer needs much of what most people value above all else. One no longer needs the excitement of war. One no longer needs to be a slave to destructive thoughts or deeds. One no longer needs to organize.

Krishnamurti's story of the Devil is pertinent here. Laura Huxley furnished me with a copy of it. The Devil was walking down the street with a friend, and they saw a man pick something up, look at it carefully and put it in his pocket. The friend said to the Devil, "What's that?" The Devil said, "He has found a bit of the truth." The friend said, "Isn't that bad for your business?" The Devil said, "No, I am going to arrange to have him organize it."

So it behooves us not to organize either the methods or the states which Wolff describes so well. It is better not to try to devise groups, techniques, churches, places, or other forms of human organization to encourage, foster, or force upon others these states. If these states are going to do anything with humanity, they must "creep by contagion," as it were, from one individual to the next.

God as Consciousness-Without-an-Object, if real, will be apperceived and introcepted by more and more of us as we turn toward the inner realities within each of us. If God as Consciousness-Without-an-Object inhabits each of us, we eventually will see this. We will become universally aware. We will realize consciousness as being everywhere and eternal. We will realize that Consciousness-Without-an-Object in each of us is prejudiced and biased because it has linked up with a human brain.


REFERENCE
1. Merrell-Wolif, Franklin, Pathways Through to Space, and The Philosophy of Consciousness- Without-an-Object, both New York: Julian-Press, 1973.

Dr. John C. Lilly, M.D., Simulations of God, Chapter 19

Drifter

[Drifter]

Nice website Dr.Joe,

You and I may be God-Realized though many apparent others are as yet there (as gifted) and this is mankinds birthright. Lets make sure we use our gift Righteously for all and not as a self serving lecturn from which many preach. I have no particular aversion to the word "God" for I have re-cognised the Truth of the pointer, it is the same truth within all no matter by which 'name' or label is placed upon IT. The all in One, The One in All. It is all part of the grand illusion of God, playing hide and seek with His Self.

I AM THAT I AM, and you are too.

Love Brother/Self
Drifter

Free Hugs to All,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

[Drifter]

Hello Alex,
The Feast of the Divine mana need not be compromised, although "when two or more guest are gathered in the Spirit" (Relative Consciousness/Son/Sun) of brotherhood and friendship and friendly discussion, Divine Consciousness/Father/Still Awareness can be observed, there "I Am".
In That we all are One

Yours I Am, we are One, in That

Love
Drifter

[Drifter]

The teaching that takes one/is beyond all teachings is The Truth, and is truly liberating and breaks the chains of self-imposed bondage. In that there is peace. Spirit is free to drift in the open, cloudless Sky of Divine( by way of relative) Consciousness.
When Awareness knows Sensation Consciuosness is born.

Drifter

[Drifter]

What Is Spirit?
Spirit Is when the "Aha" moment, overtakes one's relative Consciousness.
"Becoming One with That."

http://www.soulfulliving.com/the_aha_moment.htm

I AM That I Am, and you are too.
In That, 'we' are as One, Manifest, Spirit enfleshed (God In the flesh).
The "No-thing" within It Self.
Immutable, Inseperable,
and Self-Subsisting.
An Ancient and Timeless,(skin-encapsulated Spirit), having a Human-experience.
Liberated and Free.
Running the course of this existence solely for acquring Divine attributes(Truth & Light), so as not to be re-born spiritually handicapped (limbless)as in ignorance/darkness.

Love
Drifter