Spirituality is not a happy place.

@OogieBoogie You got me.

@sree251 it's a necessary thing🤷
No light without the dark .
No rainbow without the storm .
No laughter without the teeth .

If life were all smooth sailing we'd be bored as shit .

@OogieBoogie Life has been smooth sailing for me. I love it. It is why I am afraid that it may never last judging from the misery others around me suffer.

@sree251 If it's all been smooth sailing , I don't understand why spirituality is such an unhappy place for you .🤷

@OogieBoogie I know that smooth sailing can't last. I am healthy. Are you? What are the chances that my body will stay fit and healthy till it dies? As a rule, people die horrible deaths as their body age and deteriorates. Nobody with a healthy body ever dies peacefully in their sleep. What about money? Will you have enough to last a lifetime of 90 years? Thinking about these things makes me wonder why we exist. Spirituality is where we drift in asking such questions. If I am happy, I won't go spiritual. I would go to the beach and have a pizza and a beer.

@sree251 So....you aren't spiritual when you are happy ?
Maybe there's the rub ?
Maybe that's telling you something 🤷

@OogieBoogie What's the rub? Why don't you tell me? When I am happy, I am in the here and now eating a delicious canoli or watching a nice movie.

@sree251 coz you talk of spirituality ...yet you never feel it in the good moments ?

That's the rub 🤷

@OogieBoogie Actually, I don't like spirituality. I only drift there when my worldly moments are no good.

@sree251 ahhh.
That's a shame .

@OogieBoogie Why is that, Oogie? In academic circles, spirituality is viewed as a sickness.

@sree251 I suppose it has to do with viewpoint.
You still haven't answered my question , what does God mean to you, personally ?

I'm only trying to help you think things through, it isn't I that is searching for some sort of clarity here .

@OogieBoogie You asked:" You still haven't answered my question , what does God mean to you, personally ?"

"God", to me, means the entirety of my existence. I have not figured out what I am yet let alone this strange and troubling world in which I live.

@sree251 well that's completely understandable ....not many of us have.

Unless we have some sort of NDE or magical epiphany that comes with a life crisis ....we all have to muddle along and try and find meaning in this thing we call life .

There's just so much to learn. And every time we learn something new that doesn't fit with what we know ....we have to do all this shuffling and rearranging of what we do know.

And then sometimes, something comes along and upsets the whole damn apple cart of what we know ....and it's like we have to start all over again .

I hear your frustration .

@OogieBoogie You said: "I hear your frustration ."

Thank you. You have no idea how many dark nights of the soul I suffered in search of "God" (which, to me, equates with freedom from this unholy existence).

I don't like muddle, Oogie.

@sree251 I don't like muddle either.

But I have made peace with the fact that this is all a process ....and that the process is important.

I mean, you think about people who you have told solutions to .. .that you KNOW will work .

Do they do it ? Do they even consider it ?
Nope.


Sometimes we just have to fuck up, muddle along , and come to our own realizations when we are ready to accept them.

Sometimes you have to try the wrong way, and find it doesnt work ...to accept the right way, or a better way when it comes along 🤷

Like ....I went through YEARS thinking God was some kind of 'person'.
I looked at this religion , and that religion, and so many others thinking I'd find this 'god' guy.

I laugh at how stupid I was .

Now I think I have a better understanding of what God may be ....and although I feel closer to knowing , the definition is more vague than ever.

It's a feeling ....it's in the air.... and in my blood.
I know it is .
But it's the connection to it I'm floundering on.

I know I'm connected in some way ....it's an innate direction I get pulled in .

But bugger me if I can find the fucking lightswitch to turn on so I know where I'm going 😂

@OogieBoogie You said: "But bugger me if I can find the fucking lightswitch to turn on so I know where I'm going"

Yeah, I feel that connection also and wish it could set me free. I am not hankering for eternal life in Paradise. This world works fine for me provided I have two things: money to go on living the way I have been doing, and access to that lightswitch to turn it off while my body is still healthy. I have seen enough bad stuff around me: the body is a torture chamber and takes 10 years to die from diseases.

@sree251 I think a lot of this existence is some sort of 'lesson'.
And I don't believe that we get just one 'lesson'.

I used to think that spirituality was something separate from this physical world, and our physical body.
I used to think that it was whole thing unto itself.

But now I think that it IS connected.
And that maybe it's part of that elusive connection - to find how symbiotic it all is:
Our body
The air
What we do
What we leave
How we affect the world and how we affect ourselves ...or let the world affect us.

Like, I used admire guru's who sat in caves and supposedly became all enlightened .

But now I don't.
Same with the Dalai Lama.

THATS not enlightenment - that's avoidance.
You can't know the struggle or understand the fight ....if you've never had to 🤷

And I think 'eternal paradise' is pointless.
I mean...God supposedly IS eternal paradise and what did he do ?
He created mankind🤷
Ok ..fair enough ....and then he gave us free will.

And whasnt that a massive clusterfuck ?

Now....evidently God knew we were gonna do this . But I think THATS the point .
I think as much as we strive to know "God" . God is strivng to know themself too .....though us . Through our imperfection . Through our fuck ups and desires and limitations .

And there is no end to this . There is no final level, there is no heaven or hell, there is no end game to achieve.
God has no end.
Therefore neither do we .

However , I do wonder if there is a type of 'leveling up '🤔

I don't think Nirvana or enlightenment is the trophy we think it is. In fact I don't think it's a final point at all. I think this spiritual thing is an eternal journey .

And the choice we have is to either keep doing the same things, all the time , and stay on the hamster wheel ...
Or....we can step off the hamster wheel and stumble around and try and pick a direction and learn shit.

I suppose it's finding what makes you inherently happy.....and worthy ....and has meaning 🤷

It's a weird thing .
They say ignorance is bliss . Yet here we are striving to understand it all ...to reach bliss.

And for me ... There's the catch : I sometimes wonder if I'm doing it wrong.
Is searching the wrong thing ?
Is it blind acceptance of what is ?
Are we just supposed to be happy to be on the hamster wheel ?

Ugh ...I dunno .

@OogieBoogie You said: "But now I think that it IS connected."

Of course, it is all connected. You wrote a good post. I would like to take this journey of inquiry with you even if I end up on the hamster wheel spinning it with you till we fade away and the inquiry remains.

The only sure thing is this material world and its horrors, and we need to stay out of trouble. What about farmed animals? I am having hamburger for dinner tonight. I saw this movie the other day and it was about cattle, the kind my hamburger meat comes from. Apparently, every bull is castrated to keep them manageable like the cows. And male chicks are killed off because they can't lay eggs. No wonder we kill each other by the millions in wars without a thought.

Spirituality and God. I think we are evil, a bunch of devils burning in eternal hell. What do you think?