Hi Rita:

My feeling and thinking says that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

To me, however, spirit is is not some ghostly or supernatural quality. Spirit is energy, and there is no doubt that we are energy, along with everyone and everything else. We are a spiritual universe.

Moreover, energy is a singularity, and we are an inseparable part of that singularity. So much so that our higher or ultimate self is the singularity.

Can we be both?

I would argue that indeed, we are both, Kimmio. I think there's a false dichotomy being set up here.

Please elaborate Rev. Steven .....

I had not considered the question in that light.....

Regards

Rita

I'm not sure whether the "spiritual" is necessarily accepted as a part of life: to many of my friends, I'm eccentric more because I discern "spirit" within myself, than because I see my spirit life as my "all". Many people do not seem able to conceive, think or live spirit-experience.

In many ways, open-ness to spirit seems to be cultural. Denial of spirit is quite recent, an outcome of the "Enlightenment" and placing of the whole of nature in human hands. A big force driving the Enlightment was the certainty that it would make tyranny unsustainable. That was, perhaps, its biggest mistake.

Another mistake was the view that "god" (and, with god, transcendence) was necessarily entangled with tyranny  (the church had made it so, but the church was not and is not "god") … everything had to resolve into explanation, analysis and reason.

Only now are some people beginning to see the enormity of those mistakes. Even nature is in recoil.

deChardin's famous statement attempts to give clarity to the human condition as it came to be experienced through the Enlightenment. It is an evocative and pointed question that really asks whether or not we put "god" first or "humanity". That, in context, is fair enough.

But de Chardin's is not a universal question. Hinduism, for example, includes schools of thought that embrace what we would categorise as atheism and only  6-8 per cent of people in India declare themselves "irreligious". It's a difficult thing to do there because religion is seen so differently… as it is in many cultures.

And the "spirit" question is more complicated.

In this broader context, I find deChardin's question a false dichotomy:  "spirit"  is neither here nor there. It is, for me, all… it collapses form and function, reason and intuition, past, present and future. It is to me the context of experience, so… in deChardin's sense, that would suggest we are spiritual entities having a human experience but that badly misrepresents what's going on.

The alternative, to me, is demonstrably self- delusional: it draws a horizon around the limits of human capacities and calls that "reality". It creates a false dvision between the knowable and the unknowable.  It's demonstrably self-delusional because every person experiences his/her horizons in his/her own many ways — emotional, sensual, aesthetic, intellectual  — all of them coloured by culture — and cannot begin to articulate ANY of them in ways that communicate more than fleeting glimpses to each other.

An article in the latest New Scientist states that, without infinity as a concept, the universe is explicable: "The End of Infinity: get rid of it and the universe suddenly makes sense" is the covrer headline.}The infinity illusion — abandon the idea that some things neve end and the universe might start making more sense (says Amanda Gefter, a science writer basede in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose book 'Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn' will be published by Random House in January 2014.) 

We'll have to wait till then to really see what she says. But, from the article and what I suspect is coming. is another reductio ad homo — the drawing of a tighter boundary around the materially discernible. It is a necessary step if we want to pretend that we can fully comprehend the universe and bend it to our will.  It is an extension of Enlightenliment egoism: one giant leap for a human being, another stunting little step backwards for humankind.

The problem we will one day wake up to is that in dwarding the universerse to fit our heads will diminish ourselves, leaving us wanting to further dwarf the universe… until we vanish up our own egos.

I prefer the freedom and vastnesses on being the spirit grants. "Control" is for the sad and the fearful.

To answer your question, Rita: to "be" is simply "to be" —  we cannot make ourselves more… but we can choose to make ourselves much, much less. 

MikePaterson ...... thank you! .... a wonderful post!

And thank you to the other contributors as well.....

This is the sort of dialogue that I find enriches my life.

Much to chew on here and I shall do so over the weekend.....

....

If I may ask (open to all) ... what are your views on animals such as our pets having a "spirit" ?

Can we include this in our discussion?

Thank you

Rita

I haven't really thought it through fully, Rita, but it just seems to me that if we choose either option, we're denying an essential part of who we are and of what makes us what we are. And if Jesus can be both fully human and fully divine (which is what I believe) then it seems inconsistent to say that I (or anyone else) can't be both a spiritual being and a human being at the same time. Maybe it's the reality of being human that makes us spiritual? Maybe it's the "image of God" within us that gives us both a spiritual capacity but also makes our humanity meaningful? Just thinking out loud here.

Actually Rev Steven .... just to clarify my viewpoint a bit...... I was looking at the quote in a horse/cart sort of way.   Rather than seeing spiritual and human as separate things I was looking at it as being aspects of the same entity so to speak.  For me it was more about order rather than either/or.

I hope that helps you understand my viewpoint a bit better.

Regards

Rita

Are we spiritual beings? Are we human beings? Yes, we are.

In that case, I'd honestly still be inclined to say we're both.

Of course we are both. Particularly if we, as I do, define "spirit" as "energy."

The lamps are different,

But the light is the same.

One matter, one energy, one light, one light-mind,

Endlessly emanating all things.

-Rumi

"Being spiritual," of course, has many meanings. In order to be regarded as being spiritual, or as a spiritual being, we'd have to act like one. This, to me, means being aware of and acting in the spirit of the energetic and godly singularity of which we are an inseparable part.

What does acting like that in our day to day practical life look like to you, Arm? Sharing, helping one another, cooperating?

Hi Kimmio:

To me it is, first of all, being consciously aware of universal at-one-ment. This happens not so much by thinking but rather by not thinking, or just experiencing. When I experience unthinkingly, then I experience the oneness which is God. I then base my thoughts on that awareness, and my actions on my thoughts. All of my actions and all aspects of my everyday life are affected by that.

I live as simply as I can, consuming as little as possible. Before I moved to town two years ago, I looked after my grandchildren, wrote, grew a huge vegetable, fruit and berry garden and gave away the surplus. Now my health does not permit me to do a lot of hard labour any more, so I share the fruits of my contemplations through writing and by talking to family, relatives, friends and acquaintances.

I am now 73 years old, slightly ill (lost of 50% of my liver function and 75% of my kidney function) and trying to settle into the contemplative life of a retired "Elder."

You're living a good life, Arm! :)

Thanks, Kimmio!

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my volunteer activities:

In 1985, shortly after my Big Vision, I joined the Barbizon Collective. We wrote, printed, and published the monthly Barbizon Magazine, an annual Alamanac, and other small brochures and publications. Around the same time I also began to co-organize the annual Re-Birth of Mother Earth Gathering. I also wrote articles for several New Age magazines and a spiritual/environmentalist column in our local Weekly.

In the early 90ies I withdrew from those, grew a big garden and my grandchildren, and wrote a book, in two languages. After I had one of them published and the other off to my agent, I joined the United Church. There I put in one hell of an—pardon me, one heaven of an effort to spread my message of universal unity, co-founding and co-managing the outreach programs wondercafe-live! and wonderquest and also sitting on the Board and two Committees and conducting lay services whenever necessary. My wife was the Board Treasurer and very active in the UCW and various fundraisers, so much so that we both burned out.

When we moved to Vernon two years ago, my wife suffered a mental breakdown. Last summer she spent six weeks in a psychiatric clinic and three months in a follow-up day program at the same clinic. My main job during that time was supporting her. Now she is well again.

Right now we are renovating our rental dwelling, which we need in order to supplement our meagre pension. But I can't work very hard any more, and have to rest for a day or two after working for one day.

Looking back on almost 30 years of trying to spread the message of cosmic unity, I must say that I've had some small successes, but nowhere near the grand success I had hoped for after I had my Grand Vision at the Eve of the Spring Equinox of 1984, during which I experienced God as the unified self creative universe. It seems that, after two-thousand years of conventional Christian mind conditioning, the concept of God as the supernatural cosmic creator ghost still powerfully haunts the Western imagination, so much so that the concept of God as the self-generative universe has only a slim chance of sinking in.

There goes my lifetime rant. Thanks for asking and thanks for listening.

I've got 13 years on ya....

Having beaten Malaria, Cancer, Diverticulitus, and Bladder tumours...

I have never enjoyed life more...being very and totally retired I now have TIME for family and books...

Funny... most of my life I have dreaded old age...

(one of the main nice things about it is ---little is expected of you )

Its a good time to think ... absorb other's ideas from books ... we are told not to do this when young (just follow directions without thought) could interfere with the process of active blindness as compared to passive blindness ... I shan't elaborate as being much younger than Happy John such abstracts would be considered negative thinking ... entities that go against emotional output ... as positive thinking without reflection. Those damn things that come back at yah like ego ... or echo ... whatever label you'd like to put on such ungodly acts when in passionate state ... one can't think ...

Some people appear to believe thoughts as po' no graphic as they appear in the dark ... when a person is in autonomous state as if when drifting off ... or is that de RIFF tin as a hole in that hot rouff? Fringes of elle as chi was loched up in a flawed personality ... that's only human ... as we are to make errors to make report on as we are not allowed to know ... there are flaws in the system though ... that's the human hue ... sort of dark! Most can't see it for it is inside space ... just imagine ...

Such things drift off when time passes ... and season's of spice and spirit become something else again ... plate Onyx? That's dark eh-bi ... like where the silent soul speaks to you from ... as your head is bowed over a tome ... enjoying what isn't really there as it is black ... what you are reading but seldom read into as we're directed to accept this physically and ignor morals and ethics that few active thoughts can deal with ... because it is a definition that is subliminally un-taught ... sublime consciousness that you are unconscious of ... extremely subtle ... understanding stupidity as it exists!

Eventually the obsequitous OBI gets yah ... and you become pure thought all wrote off ... often a rotten (wraught in) myth! Should we think of these things early and make a bucket list? God didn't think of these things until heis 2 was on the other side as mire esse ennes; of what you might ask? I don't know yet ... as human I've been denied knowing all things ... but I seem to be flawed as I can't help thinking things co'dave ben beta ... if we'de seen the beauty in what's alien to us ...

That sort of thinking that gives Happy John a pain in the ass for my explicit impressions of what I'm not supposed to know as a minor thing below the horizon of non thinkers ... like a negative emotion ... that's athe aught ... a hole or Circe into which you can bury foreign knowledge ... strange eh-bi? Then it is not strickly following the rule or idée of humanoid ortal creatures that have ends ... with cracks ... suitable as satyrs ... or as Webster defines scions of secondary gods that approach god essense as the phermones drift like pede ... a Celtic expression on smelly things that should be Eire'd ... like elite-ism ... look at it humbly ... from loe Ayre end that supports god knows what ... and before yah know it Eyore right intuit! That's de Nous ... a Cyrillic Hus'eL ... L'ear meis?

De light escapes me when I see all the injustice that extremely emotional folk are delusional about ... like thoughts oppressed in emotional bodies ...

Is there an inverse form like emotions oppressed in bodies of thought? God assist all the hues ... thus the painted coat of many colours ... a sol'e in disarray ... dissonance or Eris in ancient syntax ... and still we don't know it ...

Could these dimensions exist together without brae in storms?  Perhaps such things are no identifiable inthe presence sense ... only in a future lear ... or is that sear in thought of eLO'de rifters? Other lost thoughts ... like black Lam das is ...

Hi Rita TG,

Both points of view fail in that they both make the same elementary mistake.  They assume that "spiritual" and "human" are somehow in opposition to each other.  That they inhabit an either/or relationship rather than an both/and one.

There is a false reduction of human to physical and somehow different from spiritual.  I know that great Greek Philosophers made this distinction, I don't know why we have treasured it so much.

Humanity is both physical and spiritual and one component should not be elevated above the other unless we are striving for imbalance.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Do we loose something when we discard aboriginal ideas completely? Like an essence of shunning ... mire ghost of chance?

Those beyond (mythical?) this state of presence giggle at people stuck on this point ... damned spot ... in morphus structure. That is to say they can't move, or inflexible ... stone taurus or just hard bull for those of us out there to take. Then those that move on the point are often called crazy ... as they think differently than those that demand on going by the book ... sort of entome'd?

Does the myth go on; the illusion of reality that will alter ... become Cos MoeL ogic ... oh je ... à qui element of transformation! Different strokes and yet some people don't believein "they" ... those other people count too ... th'eM; an alternate population paradigm!

I see spirituality as an inheritance that we were born with. What we do with that "inheritance" is up to us. We can give it monetary value, share it, bury it, do nothing with it, invest in it wisely or refuse it altogether. We can become more spiritual in nature or focus more on our "fleshly" nature. They are not always equal and one can become greater than the other, depending on how we view our purpose in this world. (IMHO)

First if you look at Gen 3:19-----you will see what GOD said about the flesh. Two if you look at John 6: 63--- you will see what Jesus The Christ said of the flesh.  Then check  1 cor 15:44 ----You will see what  The Apostle Paul thuoght. I my self believe  GODS  Word so I believe  a human is of two parts. God has not told me different. God Bless----airclean33

hold on, here goes a calvacade of connexions:

in addition

remember, we are made of particles (which seem to be fluctuations in various specific fields)...

so an 'immaterial' (wave function) that we cannot observe, yet we have figured out the rules of its behaviour, is related to the 'material'...there is an interaction, a relationship going on (social?)...

(and energy:and energy: richard feynman:"It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a definite amount."  We know how it behaves, what it does)

oh, and RitaTG mentioned animals...

"animals can tell right from wrong"

bird funerals

hippo tries to save impala

and, a bunch of nifty quotes

"We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts."

--ray bradbury

Oh, and being TG has ne plus ultra'd:  Chelsea Manning -- talk aboot heroic competition :3  Talk aboot noble sacrifice...

And God ... as energy of Love ... will that pass as  unseen? John 20:29! They say you can't see it coming!

It is abstract like quoting scriptures as flat out truths with no moral or ethic connected in a sociopathic manna, sort of thin essence of that which is larger ...

Then many believe that's all there is ... Baccha lure'n science of the phesher monii ... wealth of de brain ... a mire charge? Delight brigade that on this side loves physical war ...

What then do you call love passing? Possibly the encounter of a latent thought ... pure hermunetics ... it just follows ... you can't see this until beyond your self and old IHCei state when the bohemian form is passed ... perhaps just an old haggis myth ... or sustenance in a saac ... with that aura about it!

Great discussion! ... thank you!

Rev John ... your point was also made upthread and I agree that spiritual and human are aspects of our being and not opposites.

InnaWhimsey .... thank you ...... those are posts I am chewing on.

Regards

Rita