What is the spirit to you?
An open discussion id like to gauge what everyone’s definition of it is.
The reason I ask is that me I consider myself a logical person and would like to see the benefits of spirituality in one’s life that can be quantifiable in someway.
I see A lot of subs catering to spiritual practise, spiritual energy etc.
Something id like to learn more about.
Thanks
It’s much easier to define an object than something imperceptible, try to define anger and see, then go and experience anger and see how close the definition comes to describing that emotion.
My point is that words are just words, but they are empty. The Spirit is exactly what fills that emptiness, it is the life principle. That’s how I would define it.
But to know it you must experience it, and then you will realize that to define does not allow you to know and understand it. A definition like that can only be valuable for anyone who already knows the Spirit.
If I define anger for you, without saying that my definition is about anger. You will be like, that is anger! But that is because you know and have experienced anger, so you can relate.
You see?
Definitions are academic, they are better kept for objects because objects are usually not part of direct experience unless it’s you experiencing your body, or maybe someone else’s body during sexual intercourse.
You can experience driving a car, a scissors when cutting a paper but you don’t become one with the scissors to experience the cutting firsthand.
This is philosophy it’s another thing altogether.
Let me explain if you have a football team who enters the field, there will be a certain kind of Spirit with them, a victorious one when they win, a bitter one when they lose, but it is like a group energy field that is shared between the team and all connected players. There are not enough words I feel to define all the complex emotions we carry, but for the Spirit, it is even more difficult as it comes in so many different forms.
If you get into the Spirit of something you can do it with a sense of automation and flow which goes beyond thought, it’s more like intuition. If you have a skilled metal smith, he will emit a certain Spirit when doing his metal work, if you can get into the Spirit of that, which is the energy from his years of experience you can literally get in the flow of what he is doing and pick it up easily, it’s like going beyond thought and being carried by some force in the activity.
How does it benefit your life in a quantifiable way?
I just added that answered this a little bit in the previous post (I edited to add an extra paragraph in the post)
But essentially you can think and feel things that are embedded within that Spirit, like getting into the Spirit of a certain knowledge you would like to learn and you will be able to access that knowledge without actually reading the books because the knowledge is stored in the Akash.
You will be able to do things without much practise and learning. Like I said if you can get into the Spirit of Lionel Messi you will be able to learn quickly the arts of footbal he masters, small children often do this when they watch their favourite players, imagine them, and then start training.
But direct contact would be even better.
Give you one more, in america you have MAGA make america great again, Maga has a Spirit, what kind of Spirit can you sense it has? You must go to a rally of Trump and go and experience it.
You cannot really describe that it is beyond words.
It is the life principle, you can create movements with it, it stores information, intention, all kinds of things. Actually it is much more than that but there is a title in the sub club store which helps you to discover that if it something you desire.
Who am I to spill any beans because it will not give you the reality and the truth.
That’s like having a hot dog and describing it on paper, or drawing it on paper and saying that is what it is!
No it is not. It is still a drawing on a paper, so it is paper and ink. can’t know something without the real thing.
Reminds me of this famous painting by René Margritte.
Which is a painting of a pipe with the saying under it “this is not a pipe” because it is a painting of a pipe, so it is a painting.
She was a surrealist.
In a similar fashion a description or definition does not equate to the real thing, let alone a painting, drawing, or image. It can maybe give you an impression at most.
So then Is this an aura? How would they compare?
A energy force that influences reality is an aura.
Curious to see if it also defines as spirit
The Treachery of Images by René Magritte
See you will try to understand it from logic an rationale but you will not figure it all out because you are essentially trying to understand the internet. Is the internet like google? Is the internet like firefox, is the internet like facebook?
You don’t even know it exists unless you have a device that accesses the internet.
Aura is made of the same principle but it’s not exactly the Spirit.
For me this makes a lot of sense but for you anything I add will maybe you cause confusion
Because like I said description and definition is not the real thing and when you experience it you will start to understand it.
Try to define actually water without every having seen it, without ever having bathed in it, without ever having showered or something. All kinds of things you can do with water, you can even drink it! And the taste can differ from the source of the water.
But the spirit is the life principle it’s alive!
If you ever gave a presentation where you talked without thinking and everything just perfectly flew together completely in the moment this is actually a spiritual act.
It’s when your mind gets out of you way and you can just be… Yourself.
Because you are in the flow, in the what is flowing, your energy, your spirit and you express yourself through it, you really just express the energy. It requires no thought. If anything you mind has to let go and just be.
To be or not to be is what buddha said, if you are thinking you are not being. So if you let go of thought you can be and live. Just expressing your essence.
There are many ways to approach this excellent question.
One way that I like is this:
the spirit of something is the core animating principle of that thing.
This definition does not require any allegiance to metaphysical concepts or notions.
What are the things that are most important to your world, to your functioning, to your being?
This is not a simple question. The answers to it will continually evolve as you understand and explore yourself further.
As for this statement:
That seems somewhat illogical to me.
When you’re dealing with complex, compound, multifaceted systems—like, for example, the ecosystem of a rainforest—simple quantifiable metrics are often overly reductionistic. It’s not because of metaphysics nor is it because of disembodied entities. It’s due to the existence of myriad parallel processes in complex feedback loops. Choosing one metric is often going to have limited utility.
If that’s true for a rainforest, it’s even truer for a system as complex as the human brain in concert with its surrounding environmental contexts.
That’s not to say it’s useless to measure things. Measurement and quantification are useful and noble enterprises. But just don’t make the mistake of assuming that an elegant model is actually going to accommodate existent phenomena simply because that model feels ‘satisfying’ to you or appears ‘robust’ or ‘elegant’.
That’s the part that I think is illogical. Complex, dynamic systems are never reducible to simple quantifiable metrics.
Anyway, back to the point.
One principle that I think relates to your subject is this:
“Investing in Loss”
Have a look into that concept. It’s a very ‘spiritual’ principle, and it’s one that many people will take a very long time to appreciate. It’s also directly (and potentially ‘measurably’) connected to more effective and efficient outcomes in one’s life.
Investing in loss.
I get that, thank you for elaborating.
It is largely something that I plan to explore once my immediate focuses and needs are met.
Ponder into the abstract. Tap into the vastness of our universe.
Seems safe, lol. I’ll breakdown my definitions then.
Spirit is defined as non-physicals aspects of you.
Spirituality is defined as nothing more than the journey towards “enlightenment”.
Enlightenment is defined as a deep and congruent realization of one’s “true self”.
True Self is defined as the aspect of you which transcends your “ego.”
Ego is defined as your self-identity.
All spiritual practices, doctrines, religions and pathways are a form of developing this congruence at different rates and different extents through various methods.
The benefits of spirituality are expanded awareness, enhanced intuition, immunity to fear and stronger connection to your subconscious mind (merely an extension of you). “Enlightenment” is basically the absolute pinnacle of personal power.
Instead of quantifying, I have something better…
Imagine not needing to use subliminals.
Quick question off-topic @Skadoosh,
You seem pretty logical and analytical about your mind process and how to use it toward growth. I have read your very first threads and there is a before and an after like you had some realization at some point that accelerated your growth (mind/spirit). Which products do you think this can help someone achieve the same knowledge or understanding or realization? ROM? ROS?
Thank you for that. This was what I was looking for cheers
What do you mean? I honestly don’t know, lol.
I mean: reading your very first threads back when you joined SC I could see a progressive evolution of your mindset. You were a regular bloke, then at some point (I can’t find when) there have been a jump in your mindset, a jump in your growth up to the level you are now, which is obviously quite far from regular people. The growth that took you there was not anymore linear and steady but exponential.
And I was wondering if there was a single even that accelerated your mindset/spiritual growth as an individual.
And which subliminal (ROM?ROS?something else?) do you believe can help someone do the same as you.
I still am, lol.
I just got home from work and I’m in my underwear right now drinking tea. Just finished paying my credit card bills. Might play some Dark Souls 2.
What jump? I honestly have zero clue what you’re referring to, it’s just to vague. Unless you have some kind of example.
Hahahahha love it
It is very difficult to define spirit and spirituality and its associated terms like faith directly, because we are used to a measurable, tangible view of the world.
The easiest place to start that I always come back to is that I am conscious, I can have memories which I can recall from childhood, I can imagine things which do not exist in the objective world, I can think and reason and seemingly make decisions of my own free will. But there is nothing tangible or concrete that I can point to in my brain or body which tells me why this should be the case. Even the slightly more sophisticated concept using energy fields shaping reality doesn’t answer the deeper questions of why we can think for ourselves and disagree with one another.
Throughout history it has seemed self evident to thinking individuals that this thing which we call consciousness or will nowadays is not merely an end result of the chance collaboration of molecules and physical forces, but has its own objective existence separate from flesh. The revulsion of even-and-especially scientists comfortable with methods of logical analysis to the idea of the human-as-machine, and our own visceral reaction to meditating on this, tells us that we feel something off about taking intelligence out of the equation. It is this invisible intelligence we see ourselves and many others possess that you could call the spirit.
But more than that, once you make the admission that intelligence can exist and that history has shown us many examples of this intelligence existing independently from the body, it opens the door to other questions. Questions such as can we be influenced by intelligences that do not have a visible body, could there be an intelligence behind various processes we see in the natural world, and eventually the ultimate question of the all pervading intelligence.
So we end up asking questions about this invisible something we all seem to possess in greater or lesser quantities, we wonder if there is more to life than what we see every day when we are led around by our nose ring to the club, “when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes” to quote Morpheus. Perhaps our view of the world is limited because we ignore the invisible things we cannot see. Perhaps it would help us to have a telephone line to this invisible intelligence much like it helps us to know that electricity exists. This leads to spirituality.
And because there are so many different theories people have evolved about this thing we cannot see, but can sense the existence of, there have evolved many systems of approaching the spirit, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
Those who want to control others would prefer people not to think about these things which differentiate them from a robot or a sack of meat, because it is the existence of this thing that gives us our human dignity and the rights which many claim come from God. Remove that idea of the spirit and of God, and you have no code governing how to act. Control the idea people have of spirit and God, and you can control the way they think or act.
Which is precisely why evolving your own unique understanding of the spirit and your own personal relationship with Divine intelligence is such a dangerous and radical (sarcasm) thing to do.
Spirit is, in my honest opinion, something that the rational mind and our egoic self cannot define, grasp, or even come close to cognitively speaking. Spirit is just one part of yourself & stays above the Ego while its goal is to bring to fruition our Soul path/purpose. Our Soul is the real original essence of our Self while the Spirit is a messenger that is the most important guide into our real journey in this incarnation.
So, spirituality is the cultivation of our Spirit without involving our rational mind & logic because it goes beyond both and our minds can just be pointed towards that but they are limited in their nature. The Spiritual side of you can guide your journey if you let your mind follow his guidance but you cannot guide your Spirit with your rational mind because it has a way wider, wiser & better overall bird’s-eye view. Spirituality implies a constant & never-ending fine-tuning of our ultimate connection with your Spirit.
That’s why taking action with just your logical or egoic side is going to be detrimental in the long run & Awakening to your real Self (by cultivating your Awareness) is essential to discriminate those kinds of actions.
Jiminy Cricket was Pinocchio’s conscious, would you define Jiminy as a Spirit or a Soul?
Very nice answer thanks
What is your definition of both?