SLANE said:
To me, spirit is awareness. Awareness, or spirit, is the greatest and most ineffable gift of all. It's transient, yet permanent. It's the ebb and flow of the universe that will continue (presumably) forever.
Fascinating idea and I truly do understand why you so strongly feel this way. Words are indeed symbols, quite naturally, so much of the semantics we use are very personalized to our unique experiences. My notion of spiritual, spiritus or simply
the immortal spirit... stems from my experiences of the energies I've encountered while journeying with sacred medicines, decades of contemplation and from the routine practice of deep meditation. I have come to feel the the spiritual is a latticework of sorts, the invisible blueprint and interior mechanics of all material life (which includes death, but of course). It is said that everything is a form of energy and it's substance exists because of said currentvof energy. Also, what is prevalent is that the opposite shadow of such energies is inertia or a complete void of any substance or perceivable energy flow and the absence of any field or fulcrum.
While energy's effect can be reached with our five senses, there is also energy which cannot be grasped by our mortal faculties. Like the great Nikola Tesla, I too believe there is an unseen or etheric field of said energy within and around the panorama underlying the entire phenomenal universe, one ineffably operating within the time-space-continuum. Tesla called this
ether but just as easily could have labelled it spirit, which is innate within all objects, vibrating primordially, but still exists freely on it's own terms.
He might have used
juju, had he been Nigerian or Haitian? Vodun cosmology attributes both good and bad juju (energies) contained in objects or within human intentions. Of itself, it is formless yet when taking form, it has specific qualities. My notion of spirit is wholly neutral, however, so I do not say that juju means the same thing as the spirit of a defined thing. That being said, people do use terms like good spirits and bad spirits to indicate supernatural occurrences. In such a light, spirit can have positive and negative attributes. Ultimately, I think that something spiritual is something immaterial and a state of being above or within everything else, while still maintaining its reality in mysterious detachment.
My silly belief is that awareness is the state of deep understanding, of observing in complete wakefulness. It's shadow twin is unawareness, just as consciousness has it's opposite in unconsciousness, light has it's polarity in darkness, etc. I myself, whoever I really am, often link them together as
conscious-awareness because we can be aware of many many things that are observable in the phenomenal world which we all cohabitate within, together as a whole species of living human beings. Consciousness brings the miracle of awareness to another level of engagement or perhaps, of entanglement? Overall, I'd have to state that what is spiritual to my way of seeing things, is that which exists eternally within the effulgence of the clear light, pulsinv within the formless vacuum of true reality, the quintessence of the zero point field. Within the emerging human dynamic, I speculate that spiritual awareness is that force which has been awakened and so blooms free from the dream-bubble of one's own fragile mesmerism of finite separation from the source,
The One.
I have on many occasions been consciously aware of the hidden spiritus within something or someone and it is beyond merely being observant, it is intuited without any iota of materially measured data, from a
sixth sense, so to speak. One can be aware of danger or deceit in other human beings, as well as aware of kindness and loving intentions. Essentially, its felt in the vibe. Spiritual awareness, then, is the understanding of the seemingly unseen interconnection between all things. It is by necessity, born within higher mind and might well be described as supra-conscious awareness, as Sri Aurobindu used to call it. Awareness of spirit?
I was just reading this morning, a wee bit about the very old Indian religion of Jainism and it's non-use of the concept of a cosmological creator-sustainer-destroyer, almighty, omnipotent, eternal
God. At least in terms of a higher, supreme, transcendent deity.
"However Jainism does believe in God, however, not as a creator, but as a perfect being. When a person destroys all his karmas, he becomes a liberated soul. He lives in a perfect blissful state in Moksha forever. The liberated soul possesses infinite knowledge, infinite vision, infinite power, and infinite bliss. This living being is then a God of the Jain religion."
Interesting, so such an idea has it's roots in human evolutionary growth. Theoretically, it takes lifetimes to cultivate... but at it's very appex, exists as a pure state of enlightenment or the elevated awareness of the indivisible nature of God and is the deepest degree of self. Ergo, Aham Brahmasmi or Atma is Brahman. This is what is also pointed towards in Zen Buddhism, although free from any self, when they elludes to remembering ones "original face". I equate this level of
spiritual awakening with the culmination of conscious-awareness manifesting as the Godhead or as I have a penchant for calling this state of spiritual elevation, the awakening of the Omniself. In short, the universe observing itself through the manifestation of existence taking individual sentience. This then, is quite unlike the ancient Chinese idea of the eternal Tao, which is wholly non-anthropomorphic, immanent but entirely unbound. Perhaps it's really just a matter of perspective? It's certainly food for thought.
Namaskar, guys! :thumb_up:
) and the other contributors..
