problem of seeing/knowing?

[donq]

When your read or heard the word, say, "" what is the first word that comes to your mind?

water...(Does the first word that come to your mind is..."clear"?)
dead..."do not like"?
to pay..."bill"?
window..."room"?
stem..."flower"?
to cook..."woman"?
voyage..."English"?
rich..."nice"?

-from The Association Method or Studies in Word-Association by Carl G. Jung (1910)

(if you are interest, you can read the full book on the internet archive or archive.org)

You can see that, anyone would have the different first word that came to his/her mind. It's understandable (or not?) Considering that we come from the very different background. Not to mention about the different states of mind at that very moment (both conscious and unconsciousness).

Then, how about spirituality? Do we really think the same thing/meaning when we heard/read the word, say, "spirituality", "god", "enlightenment" etc.
If that so, how could we reach and gain our the (spiritual) meaning/truth?

Another problem might be:

"But ultimate Truth is not something that can be rationally demonstrated or proven. As the Great Traditions would put it, humans have at least three modes of knowing: the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of contemplation. The eye of flesh is what grounds conventional science—all conventional science rests its proofs in sensory experience (or extensions of the senses, such as telescopes, microscopes, CAT scans, and X‑rays). The eye of mind gives us rationality, logic, and reason. Mathematics, for example, is a mental experience (nobody has ever seen the square root of negative one running around out there in the sensory world—it is a mental experience, pure and simple), and likewise logic, its rules and regulations, are mental experiences. And there are no sensory proofs for mental realities—there is no sensory proof for math or logic; can’t be done. The “eye of mind” is a higher-level development than the eye of flesh, and the lower cannot prove the higher. Likewise with the “eye of contemplation”—a higher level yet, which cannot be proven either by the eye of flesh or the eye of mind (senses, reason, or logic). The eye of contemplation is the eye with which a human has authentic spiritual experiences, and just as sensory experiences are the foundation for the natural sciences, and mental experiences are the foundation for mathematics and logic, so spiritual experiences are the foundation for Waking Up realizations—for Enlightenment, Awakening, metamorphosis, gnosis, jnana. And scholars of the mystical, or esoteric, or inner teachings of the world’s Great Traditions are fairly unanimous in saying that although the outer teachings of each tradition are considerably different, often even contradictory, the inner esoteric teachings, the teachings based not on beliefs but on direct spiritual experiences of Waking Up, show a remarkable similarity in what they say, which is why the mystics of virtually all the world’s religions have great ease in understanding each other, even as their exoteric brethren argue themselves silly."
-from The Future of Religion by Ken Wilber

Again, isn’t it a paradox? We need to start from the eye of flesh, then the eye of mind and finally the eye of contemplation. But the first two eyes (senses, reason, or logic) could not help us to gain our spiritual truth. Then how could we?

So, maybe when it comes to spirituality, to gain the eye of contemplation (or even the eye of mind) we need more than our eye of flesh and the eye of mind. We need our real "contemplation". Maybe this is the very reason why each person’s bell will “ring” only to some spiritual teachings. Besides, everyone is unique, right? After that, it come our contemplation.
And the real contemplation somehow is more than gathering lots and lots knowledge. We also do need real/deep spiritual practice, do we not?

[mojomojo]

I believe it is essential, that everyone has real/deep spiritual practice in their lives. It is stated in the Christian religion, that Mary the mother of Jesus urged the people to pray the Rosary everyday, and that would be enough to save mankind from himself.
We are mind, body and soul, unfortunately very few attend to the later.
But I do believe we can be brought to the eye of contemplation, by suffering [eye of flesh] or by seeking truth as a result of suffering [eye of mind], and then through spiritual practice, wisdom can be received, but as you say everyone is different.
How has life been treating you Monty?

Mojo.

[donq]

Hi Robert,

Sooo...good to see you here, too. 

Will come back on this and your reply on another thread tomorrow.

(I'm going to post something today first).

See you later, my firend

Cheers from

monty

[hera]

Sept 29, 2019 13:19:17 GMT mojomojo said:

I believe it is essential, that everyone has real/deep spiritual practice in their lives. It is stated in the Christian religion, that Mary the mother of Jesus urged the people to pray the Rosary everyday, and that would be enough to save mankind from himself.
We are mind, body and soul, unfortunately very few attend to the later.
But I do believe we can be brought to the eye of contemplation, by suffering [eye of flesh] or by seeking truth as a result of suffering [eye of mind], and then through spiritual practice, wisdom can be received, but as you say everyone is different.
How has life been treating you Monty?

Mojo.

Hi Mojo, good to see you here too.

The first thing that came to mind when reading your words was how do you quantify spiritual practice.  Not you personally, but we the human race.  Someone who is a practising member of an organised religion would probably profess to being deeply committed to that, while others outside of 'churches' would say that church goers are just blindly following what they have either been born into or possibly came to through searching for meaning and spirituality because of awareness of a need for meaning in their lives, sometimes as a result of suffering as you said.

I have been both routes, raised within the Christian belief system, and later outside because of disillusionment with organised religion, the more fashionable, these days, means of meditation and personal relationship with what many believe is God source.
Both have an influence on how I feel and live despite the fact that they consider the other often to be very 'wrong', but that is the nature of all things spiritual is it not, 'we are right and they are wrong'.  

Open our minds I say and accept that each has a nugget of truth and the names and practices are probably irrelevant, just our search is the thing that will eventually lead to that place of enlightenment (whatever it is named)

[mojomojo]

I agree with you one hundred per cent, Hera, but have to say, if people truly understood their religion and didn't choose it as a form of belonging, then in my humble opinion, there is no group who are right or wrong, all in their own way lead to the same path. I too was raised in the Christian system and went the modern way of meditation etc, and consider all religions and spiritual practices valid. I fully understand peoples disillusionment with organised religion, but for some that maybe better than nothing.
Good to see you back on forum.

Mojo.

[donq]

@ Robert,

How has life been treating me?
Hmm....my very honest is...like an elevator?
Ups and downs. Always.
And somehow I kind of getting used to it.

P.S. Sorry for my short answer here, I'm focusing on talking to you and Hera on another thread.

[donq]

@robert:

You said,

We are mind, body and soul, unfortunately very few attend to the later.

But I do believe we can be brought to the eye of contemplation, by suffering [eye of flesh] or by seeking truth as a result of suffering [eye of mind], and then through spiritual practice, wisdom can be received, but as you say everyone is different.

Please tell me about it more. Thanks.

............................

I’d like to add something on this thread.

Let me put it this way (if it's wrong, it will be my fault, not Wilber's).

the problem about the eye of flesh: How can I make you see what I saw?
-Okay, in this modern age, video and photo might do the job. I can show you that beautiful sky I saw in some night.

the eye of mind:
-Hmm...no way I can make you feel how I feel when I saw that beautiful sky, right? You might think it's just another night sky. Physics 101. Or another example, how can I make you "feel" what I felt? How can you know how sweet of that honey taste if you never tasted it before in your life?

the eye of contemplation:
This is a toughest one. Maybe there's no other way except "Gnothi seauton" (know yourself)?

[mojomojo]

Sometimes in life, people or children can find themselves in a place of great suffering, with no way out, through no fault of their own.
To cope some disown that child or person, that is not them, they didn't experience that, and they build a new personality based on peoples reactions, this at times leads to people pleasers [wanting everyone to like them], or psychopaths [wanting everyone to fear them].
It can also cause people or children to turn inward, there is no where else to go, this leads to searching for the truth and contemplation, but without the initial suffering this may have never happened.
One of the saddest things about these situations, is, people living in the same household, will never see or be aware of the suffering of another, it is a given, people living in an abusive situation automatically go into self survival mode, there is no unity, which plays further into the hands of the abusers. No-one can see what you see, no-one can feel what you feel, spirituality is very much like that, probably why I only speak of it, if someone else brings it up. Not sure if this was the answer you were looking for.

Mojo.

[donq]

Thanks Robert.

I agree. Sometimes I wonder who I would become now if I didn't get those painful experiences in my early life (near death experience, divorce twice, to name but a few). One of the best ways to grow up still is learning to be disappointed. Easy way will never do that.
I will never known spirituality and now might become a very greedy lawyer (if not a psychopath).