Animal, like you I have no need for anything called spirituality. I enjoy my life very much. I enjoy my senses and my ability to appreciate a sunset or the stars at night. I have no need or desire to go beyond that enjoyment and impune some cause to it all, a cause I have to seek and understand. To seek after the "spiritual", the invisible, is of no interest to me. Now, for me, if there is something "spiritual" it amounts to our own internal awe over certain aspects of living. I see nothing outside of myself that I would categorize as "spiritual" in nature.
How do you fill your spiritual need , EWjW's?
by LyinEyes 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Pistoff
My spiritual journey began when I went back to recovery meetings; i had not relapsed, but went there to support a friend. I was questioning at the time anyway, seen evidence of corruption in the org, and that is where it started.
I constantly heard the admonition to seek and maintain contact with my concept of God; at first it was what I had grown up with, but it has changed.
I still believe in Jesus and christianity, but have a very different view of behavior, purpose and what is really important in my life. My family is paramount to me, then friends and I am beginning to look at what kind of charity or volunteer work I can do; i feel the need to fill the desire to help and make a difference.
I am still amazed at the life of Jesus; it always was my favorite bookstudy as a conductor and attendee; it never fails to encourage me and inspire me. Ironically it was what led me to realize that the "truth" was not what I thought it was; the elders in the hall are of course more like the pharisees than anything else, and what they consider important (hours, conduct and toeing the line) are the very things Jesus blasted in the pharisees. He was not after people for their moral failings, but he did take it to the leaders for hypocrisy and lack of love. Now that sounds familiar.
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TresHappy
I was SO scared to start any sort of spiritual journey after I left the borg. Slowly, I began to realize that God loved me and I wanted to know about Him and his Son. God is patient...thank God.
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Introspection
If you read between the lines, you'll see that any form of spirituality and non-spirituality can be the ego reconstituting or reinforcing its own identity, wanting to dignify it by calling it spirituality. Nothing wrong with that, sometimes it's very necessary actually, but I just say call it what it is, and for any word to be meaningful it needs to be distinguished from others, in this case I think the behavior has to be distinguished from a sincere interest.
Interest is really the key, or you might say curiosity. There's a certain openness to that attitude, whereas the interest in explaining things away through various existing thought systems is simply an interest in explaining things away, rather than discovery. Of course, this doesn't mean you dismiss the work that others have already put into it, but instead of blindly following some path because it seems to be the thing to do, you actually seek to understand.
Another way of looking at it is it's a matter of understanding yourself. People who are into this game of a cool spiritual identity often fail to understand that about themselves, that they simply engage in this behavior of defining their identity in a certain way, or it might take the form of some kind of non-spirituality. Someone mentioned that scripture which we're all no doubt familiar with, the NWT version being "Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need." I would point to the word conscious rather than spiritual need. Sure, you might be aware that there's something that might be considered a need, but what exactly is it? I mean just being conscious that it's there isn't really a whole lot of consciousness is it? I can be conscious of the fact that there is a world outside my own town but never go beyond acknowledging that simple fact. It's the same with any given thought system one might subscribe to.
So in a nutshell, I guess my advice is simply to take that conscious awareness/curiosity/whatever you want to call it as far as you want. Apply it to anything and everything, including the need you feel. Or don't. As with all things in life, do what you feel is appropriate.
Edited by - Introspection on 24 December 2002 2:16:50