Have your spiritual beliefs changed?

[sparklekaz]

Even as a child, I sensed that there was more to life than what I could see and feel with my physical senses. Like many others, I believe it was this belief that drew me to anything connected to the esoteric and metaphysical. As I look back on my life though, I can see how my beliefs and thought processes have changed. In some ways they have expanded and encompassed concepts I would never have thought of; in other ways I have dropped some and found myself becoming disillusioned and doubtful. My question is - have you experienced something similar. Have your thoughts and beliefs changed? And if they have, and in what way?

[donq]

Hi Karen,

It was a very good question. Recently I've asked myself the very same questions more or less. I mean between you and I, no doubt that we do believe the esoteric and metaphysical (or spirituality) have changed us a lot, in the better way. Anyway, as for myself, I have to confess that there's also the downside of it. Let me explain by telling you this true story (with some photos). Yes, I know I told you this before. Please bear with me anyway. :-)

          

               

I was standing on the long white beach. My head was bald, my dark red robe flapping in the wind blow. It was the very peaceful night with the billions stars above. And over there, I saw the milky way with my naked eyes for the first time in my life. The vast sea stayed calmly, though its wave still scrolled softly to the shore like the breath’s rhythm of the sleeping giant one. I saw something fluoresced in the sea foam, some fluorescent jelly fishes? When I strode slowly, I could see something glittered in the soaked sand like the fire scrap beneath my feet. Maybe they were many tiny seashells that rebound the shiny starlight above?
Here, it was a Buddhist monk standing in front of the great universe, only me and the universe. I suddenly felt that there was no I who was watching the vast universe in front of me anymore. It was something else watching me and the universe. And let me put on a big word, I AM the universe.

That was more almost 30 years ago. To make to long short, I believed my long time spiritual quest had ended. I believe I found my answer. So I quit being a monk and came back to the real life. Well, even I, let me use your words here, "found myself becoming disillusioned more and more" but I also have found that it was so hard to...how to say it?...to blend in?
I had spent so much time and efforts to find my answer which I believed it was worth risking But I had to spend even more time and efforts risking to tell what I believed. And I found more and more that it was not worth at all.
And at some point, I just stopped telling anyone what I really believed.
Please don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to sound pessimistic. It was just that it's a realistic in the real world. And I kind of having been okay with it somehow. My spiritual fire inside me might has been put out? I honestly don't know. But one important lesson I've learned is knowing the truth has nothing to do with telling the truth. You might know the truth but that doesn't mean anyone always wants to here the truth from you.

Once I believed that we should not "curse the darkness but light a candle instead". The problem in the world today is a candle is so obsolete. It seems no one wants a candle's anymore.

Yes, I know there's still hope. Though hope is frail but it's also hard to kill. Always.

P.S. Recently I've just learned that what I saw on the beach was plankton (bioluminescent phytoplankton). The photos I posted here were so similar to my beach. But I have to say that it was less impressed. Yes, I know it's my bias. hahaha

[aceofcups]

HI Kaz... I think my understanding and inner connectedness to my Higher Self has evolved over the years.. ( at least it seems and feels that way).    My inner meditations and inner viewings has changed and my psychic intuition with inner help has become more pronounced to my personality self.   More periods being centered in the present and having a quiet mind.

[gruntal]

Growing up in a relatively fundamentalist church I was challenged to live the faith. That made sense to me because it seemed a contradiction in terms to believe in God but assume He only existed on Sundays or in the pages of the Bible. It also made sense a watered down religion was not a religion at all but just a nice safe ethnic practice like eating hot cross buns on Easter.

Alas it also occurred to me the church was so provincial it was not practical in everyday life. Hence the dichotomy of believing in God but going about my own way and trying to solve problems in what I termed "real life". I rationalized the Pastor was a good spiritual person but I wouldn't vote for him for mayor. Maybe dog catcher but even then ....

Much later - actually about three years ago - I became involved in a local metaphysical study group replete with channeling. Yeah I admit it gave me goosebumps to actually converse with a Master thru the moderator and teacher. Alas again I became restless after awhile and wondered why I could become so intensely motivated but seeming spurned because I was "not very spiritual".

So close and yet so far. Always judged by those human beings. And more then ever dependent on the middle man. Or in this case woman.

Now I am at the level I guess everyone goes thru eventually where I don't investigate groups or teachings anymore.I KNOW it is out there and it is all mine for the taking. But I can't connect. Not yet. Oh I do but in baby steps. Primitive feeble efforts but at least I know they are authentic because I did it myself. I still feel like the unwashed bum stumbling into sanctuaries of unspoken purity. But more then ever I do not apologize for seeking the truth. No one - no human being - can stop me.

Because we all works in progress. I just wasn't ever told that in the past in a way it sounded believable. Now I live that day to day. It IS eminently practical. Even if it goes against thousands of years of past life routines and conditioning.

[anagami]

Everything changes. Nothing is permanent.
Reality is the ultimate truth, the only truth and nothing but the truth.
All knowledge is false, all teachings are false, all religions and believes are false.
After 30 years of searching enlightenment and finding only bullnuts, Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree and found enlightenment.
God cannot be known, only experienced.

[hera]

Have my spiritual beliefs changed? In one way yes, in another no, they have evolved and now encompass elements of various formal religions, esoteric practices and my own personal journey trough this quagmire of life.

I started out in a conflicted situation with parents of differing faiths and was eventually taught in a formal Christian school for the first years of my life. Neither of my parents were true to their faith but they were influenced enough by their parents and the morals of the time to believe that they should adhere to what they had been raised in.
It didn't affect me personally, except in the womb where I strongly believe I was affected by the societal pressures which 'made them' marry and gave me personality traits which are conflicted enough to make me uncomfortable enough to be constantly searching for the reason for all this.

As a result, after becoming a parent myself I found myself back in the same church I was raised in which after a while no longer felt comfortable and I left but that need to find an explanation found me in a spiritualist church where there are any number of charlatans taking advantage of vulnerable people, although I did have some experiences which I would say showed that a small percentage of them were genuine. However, it all felt very superficial and didn't point the way to finding that answer to what's the truth.

I then started studying astrology, superficially for a number of years, but enough to show me that the planets are, indeed, powerful tools which are used either by ourselves or by a superior being to direct our situations so that we can learn the lessons we need on this incarnation. Further study of evolutionary astrology has given strong confirmation of this in later years.

A period of soul destroying unhappiness for the last 12 years has found me engaged in meditative study which has finally given me a conviction that All faith is a desperate attempt by man to find something stronger and bigger than himself - a surrogate mother figure if you like who will comfort us when times get tough. For me, a certain knowledge that I am learning lessons I chose before I entered this earthly body is the only comfort I choose now, although the teachings of the Buddha are helpful to try and maintain some peace of mind.

[donq]

Hi Hera,

You post was so genuine and with a heart. I like it.
I also like the phrase, "quagmire of life". Yes, sometime life is not a quicksand but quagmire. Somehow it reminds me of a word, "picayune". Really don't know why.  
Hope to read more from you soon.
Oh! And welcome to the forum. :-)

P.S. I was going to start another thread about "what is (your) happiness?" but not sure if I have enough time to do so. I'm still curious how do you see happiness? How to get and handle it? No pressure. Reply only if you feel comfortable to do so.

[anagami]

Hi Hera!

Reflecting on your story.
I find this common thread: We all start life full of aspirations and dreams.
No time for God and spiritual BS. We only want success.
But success is a lying mistress and we all end up in a dark place (depression in my case)
It is there that we find God.

"Darkness is the place to study light"