goldisheavy

Vajra, your grammar is bad because you don't think it's worth your time to improve it. That's all. Don't blame schooling or your past for it. It's that way because of your attitude toward it. You just don't think it matters and therefore do not spend time on it. The resources to learn proper grammar are plentiful and openly available, so there is no excuse. My own opinion is that sometimes the wording you use is not the best, but the problems you create with your wordings are subtle and would take time to explain. I have no problem with your grammar myself. I enjoy good grammar, but if the thoughts are interesting, I will gladly take them with any grammar I can get them with. I do think you have a lot of very interesting thoughts, so I am not personally complaining about your grammar. I am just saying, if you want to improve it, you can. It's obvious that you are smart so there is nothing to stop you other than your own intent.

While it's possible and I would say very advisable to cultivate while you are working, leisure time is very important and worth fighting for. It's even worth dying for. Ample leisure time is as important to a good life as sleep. You wouldn't dare try living on 1 hour of sleep just because your employer thought it might be a good idea, would you? Of course not. Leisure is essential. Working 60 hours a week is wrong unless you are working with a goal in sight. For example, if you are starting your own business and you work 80 hour weeks, that's fine. Why? Because you have a goal to start your own business. It's not an indefinite state and the rewards, if you succeed, are ample and worth it. On the other hand, if you work 60 to 80 hour weeks indefinitely because one income cannot cover your expenses, then you're a fool no matter how you slice it. You're a fool because not only do you rob your own leisure time, but by working in this manner you subtly put pressure on other members of our society to match your habit, and thus you plunge us all in hell together with you. It's important to not be afraid to work hard, but at the same time, if you believe working hard is what life is about, you're not a spiritual person at all, you're a grunt, a serf and a peon. Leisure is very important and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Leisure time does not mean you are passively idling. Leisure can include creative activity into it. You can write a book at your leisure. You can do scientific or spiritual research. Some of the best and most important scientific discovering of our time were done on leisure time. Fermat came up with his famous theorem at leisure -- he was a lawyer by profession. There are many examples of this. The mind is most creative and best when it is easy-going and it's hard to be easy going when your boss drives you like a useless animal, without mercy and when you sacrifice your life and good health for someone's 3rd yacht. Be careful friend.

What serendipity. I just ran across this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/business...;pagewanted=all Check it out!

There are two battles or dialogs going on. Please, let's not get confused. Religion as a social institution, as a hierarchical human organization, a hierarchical human power structure is at odds with the secular equivalents. That's one battle or dialog. Second, and equally important is physicalism vs. non-physicalism worldview. A view of non-physicalism is a spiritual worldview. And a view of physicalism is a non-spiritual worldview. Why is this important? It's important because you can be a spiritual and yet non-religious person. You can be spiritual and religious. And you can also be a physicalist and religious person. And you can be a physicalist non-religious person. There are 4 possibilities worth looking at as opposed to just 2. Is social hierarchical structure necessary to alleviate suffering? My answer is no, it's not. So religion is not necessary. Furthermore, to the extent that power concentrations are undemocratic, they themselves are the source of suffering, and I am certain Karl Marx would agree with this statement. But this applies to all power concentrations and not just to religious institutions. So corporate governance is a source of suffering for most people (and pleasure for very very few at the top who enjoy the fruits of the abuse they can inflict using that undemocratic power). It applies to government to the extent that our elected representatives do not mirror people's will. And so on. In this case it makes no sense to single out religion for criticism. One should criticize all undemocratic power concentrations. So then we come to physicalism vs. non-physicalism. It can be logically shown that physicalist worldview is an illusion that brings pain. Non-physicalist worldview is a true view, a non-illusory view that alleviates pain. Now why would you choose a worldview with all the drawbacks and none of the benefits? It makes no sense. The only way you would end up being a physicalist is if you never allowed yourself to seriously question it. All physicalists are idiots. Period. There is absolutely no apology for physicalism, no defense.

You sound like a sincere and good person to me. You don't have ostentatious desires and if anyone, certainly you deserve a good life, a much better life than what our society has afforded you. I strongly believe that a huge reason you are experiencing this is because of our greed-driven "I got mine, fuck everyone else" culture and society. So about 70% of the responsibility for this goes to the asshole employers and to the asshole bankers and so forth. These guys are leeching off our society in an tremendous way. Wealth disparity is at the highest levels ever in USA, and USA is beginning to resemble a banana republic. Ok, but how does this help you? Well, I believe 30% of the responsibility for your predicament still falls on you. In other words, you're not a complete victim. In some measure you've done this to yourself through ignorance on your part (I wouldn't dare call you lazy, but stupid? Yea, I would call you stupid, in a friendly kind of way). Look at the bright side. You have awakened and you're only 23! Some people realize the same thin you just realized now when they are 50! So you are damn lucky. Count your blessings. First I have to tell you, depending on what/who you think you are, there are two possibilities with regard to death: 1. You will die no matter what. 2. You cannot die no matter what. Both of those are good things if you understand their implications. So if you think you are a definite personality with well-defined, concrete characteristics, you will die. You will die no matter what you do. You can stand on your ears and dance on your finger tips, and you can practice in the mountains for 100 years, every second of your life, and you will die anyway. Why is that? Because it's the nature of concrete well defined things to be born and to die. To appear and to disappear. To come and go. To change. Forever. hmmm Change forever... this seems like a hint, eh? If you think you are awareness and not the objects that appear within awareness, then you will not die, no matter how lazy and stupid you are. You can lay on the couch and eat potato chips for 30 years straight and let your body die from a stroke, and you won't die. You don't need to be some big-shot cultivator. You still cannot die. You can lose consciousness in a ditch somewhere from lack of food and die from starvation and you still do not die anymore than when you die in a dream. What happens when you die in a dream? A new dream starts. That's all. Awareness is not something that appears or disappears because awareness is not an object that you can behold. If you firmly understand these two kinds of identity scenarios, then death is no longer a threat. But still, you are here and you are alive and you want to have fun and joy and peace while you're here. So even if you no longer fear death, your problems are not over. But at least that's one less specter of fear hovering over your shoulder. I recommend the following: Find a roommate or two to reduce apartment costs. As far as food goes, apply for food stamps or eat in a Church somewhere for free. Some people do well by dumpster diving for food. There might be some tips and tricks associated with dumpster diving, so you might want to read up on it in order to avoid getting food poisoning from rotten food, but I guess most of it is common sense. Or fuck it, steal food if you must because the society you live in is highly immoral and in that case, stealing for survival is OK. You heard me right. Consider living with parents, relatives or friends. Someone might be able to put you up if you explain the situation. Try anything and be very open-minded. Let all the doors be open for you and don't think yourself into a mental corner. If someone stole food from me and I was sure this person was poor/hungry I would forgive them unless I myself was dying or my kids were dying. If you are sure the person you're stealing from is not dying or is at least in better shape than you, then since there is no justice in our society, do what you must. If you steal from me, I accept this as part of my own responsibility. I am partly responsible for the society you find yourself in. So if someone steals something from me to survive and not out of greed, this kind of effect I will accept without hesitation and without complaint. Then drop your second job. Cut your work week to something sane. Maybe even less than 40 hours! Maybe you can do OK with just a part-time job. You may qualify for all kinds of financial aid. Food stamps, welfare, unemployment, whatever. There might be aid available from your state, city, religious organizations -- not just federal. Research! Libraries with free computer access exist (if you lose whatever current access you have). Do not feel ashamed! Take advantage of anything and everything. Get your work hours down to 20-40 hours a week. Then start learning. Learn a profession that's well paid and in demand. It doesn't have to be fancy or exciting if cultivation is your number one goal. Just learn something people need done and are willing to pay good money for. Sometimes people desire unethical things -- do not learn and do those. For example, do not become a stock broker. That's an unethical job, even though you can become rich that way. Your job might not be saintly, but at the very least, try to avoid jobs that hurt society in obvious ways, because part of the reason you are in your situation is because many many other people took those bad unethical jobs for $$$ and it is because of that you now suffer. So don't inflict this suffering which you now do not enjoy on others. When you choose a profession, be very open-minded. For example, have you considered glass blowing? That's a strange profession isn't it? I bet you don't think about it every day, right? Well there are hundreds of these strange professions out there and some of them are pretty decent and interesting. You might be able to become self-employed by selling some items on the street or opening a hot-dog stand or something like that. There are other routes to self-employment. If you can be self-employed, it might be better for you. Alternatively, save up money and take a survivalist course. Learn how to survive in a forest with nothing more than a knife or just your bare hands and clothes on your back. Leave society and go live in the forest. You might be squatting on "someone's" land, but who gives a fuck. Land ownership the way we practice it in the West (where a single person can own huge swaths of land without any kind of social responsibility) is mostly immoral, so just avoid the owners the best you can, but mostly, if you just go deep enough, no one will come looking for you. It's like you won't even exist to the rest of society. This way you can spend all your time cultivating. You'll need to spend some time hunting and gathering, but ancient hungers gathers only spent 20 hours on this! The rest was leisure. It's only when farming appeared that people started slaving and the society began to get stratified into classes (high class vs low class, owner vs serf, etc.). Many sages have gone exactly this route. As a survivalist you don't have to be totally cut off. You can have a friend visit you a few times a year or you might visit a city and take some temp jobs to get items you need before leaving for a long time again, etc. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Also, if you find friends to do this with, it may become easier as long as your friends are committed. And know that you are not alone. If you find other like-minded people, together you can really do something great, something that's better than just fixing your personal situation. Because long-term we have to fix our culture.

If I may interpret this to mean "wisdom", may I humbly suggest you look into Buddhism? I'm not saying you should become a Buddhist (I am not, for example), but just studying some of the more prominent doctrines/insights of Buddha can help you with wisdom, which is what I think you mean by "clarity".

It's not so much the scientific method as the mindset held tacitly by most scientists. Scientists say nothing. What can they say? When a scientist is confronted with blatant phenomena like that, they acknowledge it, then they say they don't know how it works, what it is, and ask for a sample to study it. Then they study it and say that "aha, there is an abnormal concentration of bromide in the body" or something like that. Then they go "mystery explained" and forget about the incident. You can use all kinds of knowledge in any area of endeavor. However not all knowledge is 100% compatible. So scientists are not in a hurry to discover knowledge that would undermine their worldview. The same is true in reverse. Scientific worldview breaks certain spiritual worldviews and those who hold such worldviews would be afraid to study science. It works both ways. This happened during the Western "enlightenment" when scientists were contradicting religious dogma and got tortured and executed for doing so. This happens both ways because it's human nature to want to protect one's worldview. Studying things that contradict your worldview is like dancing on the lip of insanity. Not everyone can tolerate or enjoy that.

More like, your experiences in life are based on your conclusions. You mean you are content.

I don't misunderstand. I know you haven't been trying to actually trick me or anything like that. My aim was to demonstrate and make plain to you your pattern of thought. How you do this thing in your mind... make assumptions, jump to conclusions, etc... I wanted to expose it and used that statement as a rhetorical device for that purpose. That's not the point. The point is that while you could not prove that "yesterday" exists we behave as if it does. For example, if you loaned me $5 dollars two days ago, do I still owe $5 today? We behave as if I still do owe you $5 bucks. But if yesterday is not real, why not just forget the 5 bucks? Can you prove you loaned me $5 dollars? Actually you cannot. You can produce video footage, promissory notes, etc...all the things we accept conventionally as proofs, but in a strict philosophical sense they wouldn't prove anything about the past. And yet we behave as if the past was real. So clearly you engage in irrational behavior. Now, if you can admit this, then you will understand that this is not a choice between a rational and an irrational behavior when you choose whether or not to believe in past lives (and future lives). It's a choice between two equally irrational, equally baseless views. This is where humility comes in. It's the realization that your current belief is groundless. It doesn't mean it's worthless or that it sucks! It just means it is one among many. This is also why religion is never humble, because religion is always exclusivist on some level. Real humility has nothing to do with lowering oneself or with respecting others. You can disrespect everyone and spit on everyone's face and still be humble. Alternatively you can bow to everyone and have the highest respect for everyone you know and be very arrogant. The question is: do you realize the basic groundlessness of your beliefs or not? If you do, you are humble. If not, you are arrogant. It's that simple. Many people on this forum who proclaim to value humility and who ask others to be humble are actually extremely arrogant folks. They all know who they are and I know who they are. You're leaving a lot unsaid. So that's not the whole of "why" it's important. Why would you go to the 10th floor to try flying? Why wouldn't you attempt to fly off the floor right where you stand? So obviously your example there is crooked and shouldn't be taken for granted by anyone who values reason. And you've never seen any validated proof of anyone, other than yourself, ever dreaming.

I believe this is a very good question because I believe your answer to it affects your morals and how you live your life, as well as the quality of life for you and people around you as well. Precisely. It's not an argument because it has no thesis. You're not really arguing for or against anything. You're just restating the Zeno's paradox. However, if I may, I will speak to what I believe is your concern here. Zeno's paradox shows that when you try to find some substance in a boundary, you cannot. However, when we step back and refrain from analysis, nothing is more obvious than the apparently distinct phenomena. For me this is a demonstration how something can be real and yet be insubstantial at the same time. So substantiality is not a necessary precondition for apparent reality. This shows how it's very easy and possible to live your whole life in a dream and not ever know even once that all that time it was no more and no less than a dream. And when I say this, I don't use the word "dream" in a pejorative sense. Dreams are what we make of them.

That's a very bad position! I hope you re-evaluate it. In order to observe anything at all you must have a cognitive context. And cognitive context is nothing other than a web of interdependent beliefs. To see even one photon anywhere you must have a belief of some kind. To feel even the slightest tickle you must believe something.

But you don't remember being born either. The only evidence you have of being born is indirect. You have to take other people's word for it. Don't you think that's a little suspicious? I've heard of such cases. This is absurd. How could such proof ever be presented? If pre-birth experiences are real, they are like dreams. How would you give evidence of a dream before birth? There is no way! Even those we consider alive cannot give solid proof of their dreams. We just take their word for it. You can measure brainwaves, but there is no way to definitively associate brainwaves with dreams. That's one. Second, amnesia is a well documented fact. People with amnesia do not remember anything. This doesn't mean nothing happened to them within the space of time that amnesiacs fail to remember. Third, not everyone remembers their dreams. This doesn't mean dreams do not occur. These are pretty basic and well accepted facts. No it doesn't. If there is a dream-like state after death, how would you prove it? You cannot. The dead person is no longer a part of your dream but that doesn't mean their own perspective is gone. Let me illustrate it this way. When someone goes to sleep, then in your view, this person becomes a motionless body. But from the dreamer's view, they are in a different world that looks as real as this world here with possibly other people there. Whose view is the right one? Outside of bias, there is no way to say. Yes there is a logical reason to believe such a thing. I told you many reasons. You're just not as logical as you think. You can prove the reality of before-birth and after-death awareness through simple logic. Start with the boundary analysis and take it from there.

Well said.

This sounds intriguing. I hope one day you have the energy and inclination to go into more detail about your concept of 'change' and how it leads to a belief of death being the end of awareness. Most spiritual people, yes. I think either a 100% or near 100% of all physicalists believe that awareness arises and is dissolved as a function of matter-energy configuration. And I don't believe this (of course I am not a physicalist either, so this shouldn't be surprising). I think pretty much all people believe this. Why not live in such a manner that you don't screw up 1 trillion days from now as well? That's the question. I think the longer people are able to look into the future, the more moral they become. We see this in the business sector all the time. Executives that look for short-term advantage tend to run companies into the ground. It stands to reason that long-term thinking is the best all around, unless you believe you won't be there when something collapses or goes wrong. So for example, executives feel free to run the company into the ground because they know they will have a good life outside the company, as they get to keep their looted wealth even post-demise of the company. A very similar thing happens with people. If you think your own awareness will not suffer personally in the far future, then you may make decisions that hurt future generations of people, because you might think, "Well, I won't be there... so who gives a damn what happens after I die?" Indeed many people live exactly like that! I knew many of them personally. (especially back in exUSSR this was a very dominant mentality, expressed in Russian as "Posle menia, hot' potop." It translates as "After I am gone, I don't care even if there is Noah's flood that consumes the planet and obliterates everything" The word "potop" is a subtle reference to the Biblical passage about the world-wide flood.) There is nothing in the world that's radically new, and there is nothing in the world that's radically old (or radically similar). Try to think why and how this might be the case. Alternatively, try to come up with even just one example of a radically new thing or radically old thing (or event, or thought, or any experience). This is what Buddhists mean when they say that phenomena do not enter into any extreme of existence (is, is not, neither is nor is not, both is and is not). As a result Buddhists call their teaching a non-extremist teaching. I am not a Buddhist, but this is one of the things I like in Buddhism. Buddhism does have subtly extremist elements, as would any doctrine, but at least Buddhism tries to alert you to the dangers of extremism at the deepest level of cognition.

After-life (after-life is a bad word... more accurately it would be after-death, because life is not something that has before or after) follows logically if you understand that physicalism is false. Just investigate boundaries. Do boundaries have own-substance? (check it out). The answer is no, they do not. Therefore, anything that's delineated by boundaries also has no own-substance. Thus identity has no own-substance. Thus birth and death are illusory. This means being born is an illusion and dying is one two. It doesn't mean birth doesn't happen or death doesn't happen. Illusions do happen! So you can conclude that after-life exists in the same way tomorrow exists. You are not living in tomorrow, but you act like tomorrow is definitely coming for you. Right? Of course you do! We all do. You must then understand this one fact: there is no difference between tomorrow and any other date in the future from POV of NOW. Tomorrow is the same as 1000 billion years from now. In other words, there is no reason to believe in death as a nihilistic dissolution of awareness. Since awareness has to exists on both sides of the boundary to be cognizant of said boundary, awareness exists before birth and after death, or else you can never know your own death. These are all very good reasons. If you don't believe me, try to pick on them and see what happens. You can say that a spiritual person is someone whose life is dominated by non-physical concerns. I did say that. As a rule spiritual people do believe in death not being the end. If you consider yourself spiritual and yet you believe death to be the end, you're in the minority, and that's fine too. I was just speaking of the common case and I appreciate a reminder that the common case is not all there is.

In that case I guess I simply couldn't participate in such discussion honestly.

First, I don't think my path is defined in terms of lifetimes. I have goals that go way beyond one lifetime. Some things that I am working on will take many lifetimes. So restricting my goals to just one lifetime is not a fair thing because I don't think like that. I don't think "what's my spiritual goal in the next hour" either. In fact, I don't even have firm timelines of any kind. Instead, I have some aspirations which I allow to guide me. How long it takes is not that important to me, but I don't hamstring myself by expecting something specific to happen within one lifetime. To reflect on your proposed goals: Longevity -- useless. Martial prowess -- useless (but this depends on what you think martial prowess is, if you think that martial prowess includes subtle influencing and not just fisticuffs, then yes, I follow the way of power) healing -- good stuff, very useful under many conditions total enlightenment -- this is the big million dollar prize Here is how I would put it: 1. Wisdom (this is my primary virtue, not compassion, not patience, etc.) 2. Compassion 3. Tolerance of inconceivable phenomena / forbearance 4. Power So these are my aspirations, and also favored virtues, in the order of importance. These are what I develop. Perfections of the above 4: 1. Wisdom perfected -- enlightenment 2. Compassion perfected -- flawless liberative technique (able to liberate others and oneself via all manner of techniques), liberation on sight (people become liberated upon merely gazing on you), liberation on hearing (people become liberating upon merely hearing your footsteps or any other noise that indicates your presence) 3. Tolerance of inconceivable phenomena perfected -- immovable mind, ultimate stability, perfect fearlessness 4. Power perfected -- magical ability approaching omnipotence for all practical intents and purposes I might be able to accomplish all this in the next hour. Or maybe in the next 100 lives. Or maybe it will take me 3 eons. I don't worry about that. To put it in simple words: I just want to have a fun-filled enjoyable life. That's not very surprising, is it?

Thank you for this variation Yuen Biao. I have two questions: What do you do with the other leg? Does it go to the front like in cat stance, to the side, or to the back, or are you allowed to do whatever you think is best with the other leg as long as it's off the floor? Do you always rotate the knee clockwise, no matter which leg you're on? If not, then which direction do you rotate in for the right and for the left leg specifically? This part is interesting. My friend who spends a lot of time with Chinese masters (who don't speak English) told me that Chinese people think that popping is a good sign and it's good to pop all your joints. But in Russia people believe the opposite. People think that if you are popping in any of your joints, you are out of shape. Russian people, when they exercise regularly, stop popping. They don't pop and they don't advise to elicit the popping sound on purpose. So I was wondering if you have heard anything about this, or otherwise, what's your opinion on the popping? Is popping something to practice on purpose or is it something that's best to let pass?

I think this will depend on what you consider "Taoist". Part of the problem is that many people after Laozi, Zhuangzi and Liezi added their 2 cents into the Taoist cannon, and the quality of these additions is highly variable in my not so humble opinion. I would say some of the texts in the Taoist cannon are pure trash, but that's just me. Don't let my opinion hold anyone back. I think this idea about hell comes from some treatise that's ascribed to Taoism called something like "About heavenly retribution" or some such. I forget exactly the name, but the name should be very similar in spirit to what I said. Some relatively minor Taoist wrote it, but some people treat it as something very important. I would argue it actually goes against some of the points that Zhuangzi made regarding good and bad fortune. Anyway... since I am disgusted with that text, I won't even bother looking for it. I am sure if you want to, you can find it. I read it once and know not to bother with it anymore.

Everyone is unique and the mind is tricky. Because everyone is unique, people have different warm up periods for various practices. But because the mind is tricky, it's not enough to say that "You might need to take longer." Because by saying that you can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The mind is powerful. The mind is not always a passive receptacle for ideas, but sometimes it can take an idea and activate it, thus making the idea powerful and operative on a day to day basis. So for example, if you tell someone "you are one of those people who just learn slower", instead of just being a passive descriptor of the person, this can become activated in subconscious thus making the person even slower than the person was before hearing this bit of "news". But at the same time, if you totally fail to acknowledge the difficulties the person has, you risk alienating the person! This is art! What is the right approach? It's art. If you don't acknowledge problems the person might get angry thinking you're not taking this person's problems seriously. If you acknowledge the problems too much, this can become activated in the subconscious and aggravate the person far beyond their "normal" condition. Do you see the problem here? It's damned if you do and damned if you don't -- unless.... unless there is wisdom in the person. If the person understand wisely their predicament, this "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation is shattered through insight. There is a fine line between acknowledging difficulties and validating the person's deep self-limiting beliefs. If there is a way to acknowledge difficulties without validating the person's belief in personal limitations, that's the best, but unfortunately, there is almost no way to do that. Let me retell you a story I heard elsewhere. If you already know this story, I apologize, but it's a good story so it's worth repeating it. Once upon the time there was a yogi Master with many disciples. The yogi master also happened to teach music as a path to wisdom in addition to other methods. So one time someone new came to the meeting and said, "Master, may I play flute for you?" And the Master said, "Yes, please do." So this new person started playing and very terrible cacophony issued forth. Everyone grabbed their ears in pain and cringed in disgust. People couldn't wait for this terrible flute player to stop playing already. Finally the "music" stopped and the flute player asked, "So, Master, what do you think?" And the master said, "You're a MASTER flute player, you have nothing to learn from me. Your melody was absolutely wonderful!" The flute player was very touched and left. After this new person left all the students started getting agitated, "But Master, the music was awful! Why do you say this person was also a Master like you? That's crazy! If you keep giving out high titles like that, soon all titles will lose their meaning!" And so on. But the yogi Master just smiled and nodded and didn't reply. One year passed and this flute player returned! This person said, "may I play for you Master?" And all the students rolled their eyes and got ready to shut their ears. But the music was astonishingly beautiful. This was truly the work of a flute Master! This person finished playing and said, "Thank you for your gift, Master," bowed, and left. The end. Now this story illustrates the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This might not work every single time for everyone, but you never know for sure until you try. It's best to assume the best and proceed with the best assumptions about one's own chances, possibilities, abilities, and talents. Even if you don't end up like this flute player, you lose nothing by thinking positively. But if you think negatively, there is a good chance you will slow yourself down and make yourself more dependent on others for validation and for instruction than you'd otherwise be.

Seems like many people wonder about the meaning of "spiritual." A spiritual person is someone whose life is dominated by spiritual concerns as opposed to physicalist ones. Now I am going to use the word physicalist instead of materialist, because if I say materialist people get confused between two meanings of "materialist": 1. greedy for things, 2. a worldview that says that the ultimate essence of the world is matter-energy. So I think the word "physicalist" is much more clear in meaning. What are the physicalist concerns? Things like getting food, getting a roof over your head, procreating with the mind of creating a line of descendants on Earth (other motivations for procreating can move it beyond physicalism, but if you procreate for the sake of establishing your name/blood upon this planet, it is a purely physicalist concern). Acquiring things based on need and based on desire. This includes anything from a toothbrush to the flat panel TV set and a BMW or Lexus or McLaren F1. Physicalist concerns stem from a strong belief in physicalism. I don't want to make this post book-long, so look it up if you don't already know what it is in detail. So basically all concerns that treat the body as a bio-robot, and any concerns related to desperately prolonging the use of the bio-robot via material and social advantages are all physicalist concerns. As a rule all physicalist concerns are for this life only. Physicalism doesn't allow one to think about after-life or next life or rebirth or any such thing. To a physicalist this life is all there is, and the goal is to take everything from the world that you can get away with before you die. Once you die, everything is erased, there is neither punishment nor reward nor continuation of any kind, so if you don't get caught, you're golden. Also physicalist does not much care what happens to Earth after one's death. Sure, there are children to worry about, but this is not that important. I spend a lot of time describing a physicalist mindset because spiritual mindset will depend on this too. A spiritual person is like a complement to all this. Like the missing half. A spiritual person is one whose life is dominate by spiritual concerns. Spiritual are all non-physical concerns. Therefore the survival of bio-robot body is not that important, now it's just a tool for a higher task rather than a goal in and of itself. Going hungry is sometimes OK either as a spiritual sacrifice/contemplation, or as a health improvement, or other training. Sometimes going without a shower or without basic things is OK. Not having a place to sleep is OK. What matters is one's understanding of oneself, of one's mind, or the tendencies that manifest in the world and how those tendencies connect to one's psyche and so on. A spiritual person cares about after-life either in the form of a heaven/hell or in the form of next life or something like that. Basically this life is not the end and physical matter is not the ultimate substance to a spiritual person. In a special case a spiritual person becomes a non-physicalist, which is to say, completely refuses to acknowledge a substance that exists independently from mind. And you can imagine how this affects one's concerns in life. Notice I say "dominated". A spiritual person can still have physical concerns. A physicalist can have spiritual concerns. What determines whether or not you are spiritual is which concern is the guiding one in your life. Which one is the most important. Which concerns dominate? That's what will determine whether you are spiritual or not.

You know if religious people focused more on developing themselves, I would be inclined to agree. Live and let live. However, religious people spend a lot of their time fighting other people who are not doing anything to hurt them. For example, Muslims kill and fight gays. Christians like to fight with atheists. Jews tend to keep to themselves, unless they are in Israel, in which case they like to fight with Palestinians. Buddhists like to fight with each other. If religious people had this mindset, "I think this path works for me, and I enjoy the results I am getting" we'd have fewer problems. Now if peaceful religious people are attacked without provocation, then they have a right to defend themselves. However often the religious people attack unprovoked. For example, did the Muslims in Malaysia really have to protest against Hindus with a bloody cow's head? That's a very offensive and violent method of protest! This is why I cannot stand religion. Religion does not bring peace and it does not bring wisdom. Religion is the breeding ground of stupidity. Of course there are some exceptions to this, but largely religion is stupid and I wouldn't miss it if it was gone from the Earth. (all of it)

I'm surprised this is new to you. It all comes down to this: Do you believe it's possible to be spiritually inclined without being religious? If you believe that, then you have to define religion as something separate and distinct from spirituality, as a necessity of that belief. If you believe it's impossible to be spiritual outside religion, then your definition of religion will obviously mirror that.

Uh-huh... Can't say I am happy with religion. Wait a second. I'm also not getting enough satisfaction from what you call "the physical world." But that doesn't make me want to get religious. Ah, the sour grapes syndrome, eh? ;-) While I think that sour grapes is a possibility, I also think it is likely that the group rejects someone because they sense an incompatibility (either consciously or subconsciously). If the reason for this incompatibility is intentional on behalf of the rejected person, it's no longer "sour grapes", but more of a "I meant for this to happen" scenario. I think the sour grapes claim is fair if the person got rejected, and realized that the incompatibilities were unintentional, tried to correct them, tried to get re-integrated back into the group, but still got rejected (why? groups are all too happy to have compatible followers! maybe the person wanted to be the leader of the group instead of just being a follower?), and then this person says, "Oh wait, those groups are bad anyway, blah." So if you did not try to get re-integrated and did not try to sincerely correct whatever you thought was the cause of the rift and if you did not attempt to displace some leader of the group, I think you can honestly and non-egoistically say that it's not "sour grapes" at all, and that in your opinion, those groups really do suck, honestly.