Is Relgious belief a trick of the mind?

by sleepy 31 Replies latest jw friends

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  gitasatsangha

  Introspection said:

  In any case, my original point was if people who regularly and formally meditate cannot just sit, then what does that say about the power of their practice?

  That they are using a formal practise because typically the body and the mind are both restless. We are not typically born yogis. Getting into the whole "realization of the self" thing aint as simple as sitting around. Well maybe for one out of a million, but putting that sort of onus on someone interested in really learning about themselves is going to do nothing but leave them frustrated and perhaps a bit crestfallen. That is why methods exist.

  I admit we post-JW people tend to be vary wary of ANY method, and with good reason. i.e. "Fool my twice, shame on me." However, meditation methods are more a mind science then any religious dogma. They have been experemented and worked out for years. The fact that the West lost most of its own methods with the incursion of the Church has made the idea seem odd for many.

  So is 'mindfulness' a function of one's mind then

  The idea, as I know it, is that, since you cannot renounce your own perceptions, you can at least be aware of them, and their transitory nature. I am not a practioner of it, really, simply because I naturally tend to use another method (Japa, FWIW)

  Doesn't that imply that any understanding of the drop and the ocean is simply a thought pattern in someone's head?

  Realization is the goal. By any means necessary, to misquote Malcolm X. Mind over perception. You have to be able to say that the Mind can overcome illusory matters. The old Vedantic anaolgy is the man who mistakes a piece of rope for being a snake.

  Obviously this is helpful in a practical sense, but awareness is awareness, control is control. It's just empty. Someone may be able to enter subtle states of consciousness but not be free from it, that's just more tricks of the mind.

  Any meditative tradition tends to be a tool to lead to something greater. The West is picking up on the methods now, and they are being taught in franceises and psychologists offices all over. But the goal was always something more, be it called a Vision, Rapture, Samadhi, Nirvana, or God.
• 

  Introspection

  Hi Gita,

  In any case, my original point was if people who regularly and formally meditate cannot just sit, then what does that say about the power of their practice?

  That they are using a formal practise because typically the body and the mind are both restless. We are not typically born yogis. Getting into the whole "realization of the self" thing aint as simple as sitting around. Well maybe for one out of a million, but putting that sort of onus on someone interested in really learning about themselves is going to do nothing but leave them frustrated and perhaps a bit crestfallen. That is why methods exist.

  Ok, there is one point which would help clarify this, which is that one may have moments of realization and not fully embody or have that realization actualized 24/7. But again, I never said it's as simple as sitting around in the typical sense, and there can only be frustration if a person has judgements, and that happens just as much with spiritual people who meditate as with anything else.

  I'm not saying to give up methods altogether, but just to understand what it is. The mistake is to believe in a method in thinking that it will get you somewhere by way of doing a kind of works. One monk, I believe this was a Lama in the Tibetan tradition, said "Enlightenment is an accident, meditation makes you accident prone." I say if you want to stick to a method, great - go right ahead and practice away. But if you don't know what it's about and are just going at it blindly because you heard good things about it, then you really don't know what you're doing do you? That's just common sense, but too many people approach meditation with this mindset, which is simply the religious mindset. The question is not what it's about, it's whether you understand what it's about in practice, because a conceptual understanding doesn't always translate over.

  I might add, too, that ultimately it's pretty worthless if you are only able to be peaceful and still when being physically static. Even inanimate objects can be at peace by not doing anything, I should think an enlightened person would be able to act in peace beyond just sitting and walking. Once again, this was my point - it's not about sitting outside of formal meditation, it's about 'being mindful' in everything you do, I just mentioned non-formal sitting because that's the closest thing in form, yet we see there's a significant difference in how it's approached. 'Spiritual people' tend to talk about experiencing and feeling a certain way, but the distinction of spiritual experiences, activity and ideas against other non-spiritual ones just goes to show how polarized their thinking is. This is just spiritual ego. A person's own tradition and spiritual practice is probably the biggest and yet most obvious illusion.
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  siegswife

  I'd like to start out by saying that I don't believe in religion. It's a snare and a racket. LOL

  The concept of belief in God or a higher authority is something that I think is inside all of us to a degree. I'm not really able to express this adequately (I've tried talking it out with Sieg, but can't seem to find the right words) but it involves the idea that the fact that we are able to accept manmade authority (governments) demonstrates that "Authority" exists.

  If authority didn't exist on some unseen level, why are we willing to give men authority over us, often to our own detriment? Why are we compelled to let others lord over us even if it means our own demise? Like in countries where many people are kept in abject poverty. What is it that prevents them from rebelling against the authorities that keep them in that position? If they and their children are starving to death anyway, why don't they just put up a fight against it and die trying? I know that I'm not getting my point across clearly *sigh*.

  I guess what I'm trying to say is that the fact that we are willing to subject ourselves to manmade authority shows me that there is an unseen force that gives "reality" to the concept, and in the minds of many of us that unseen force is God. Believing that God is the force behind whatever authority there is isn't that much of a stretch if you are willing to accept that men can be put in high positions. *sigh* I just know that I'm not saying this clearly.

  On the other side of the coin, Sieg (who does believe in God, but is good at playing the devils advocate) tells me that what I'm thinking could also be compatable with evolution and survival of the fittest. Still, it seems to me that there is something unseen that makes us so willing to even accept the concept of "superior authority" to begin with.

  I hope I don't sound like a rambling lunatic. I don't want to blow my cover. LOL

  In conclusion, religious belief is only a trick of the mind if you consider submission to any type of authority to be the same, imo.
• 

  gitasatsangha

  Well, I'm not enlightened. If I run into any englightened folks, it will be interesting. Seriously it is interesting to see the different views people have.
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  Introspection

  Good point Siegs. I think maybe we might distinguish between authenticity and authority, though. Someone will submit to a perceived external authority basically out of a belief, but I think there is a natural instinct of sorts that prompts us to act in a genuine and authentic way. It seems to me that more often than not, following authority out of a belief is actually a resistance against your own nature, you sacrifice your authenticity in a way. It doesn't necessarily have to involve resistance though, but if someone is completely identified with their mind then this can happen easily. The thing is, there are a things like breathing, thirst and hunger that are more essential to life which does not operate from beliefs, from the psychological mind. We all submit to these authorities on a regular basis, but it's certainly not out of what one would call belief.
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  siegswife

  Introspection, Doesn't submission to authority give authenticity to the belief that those authorities are superior? LOL

  What makes authority "authority" except the belief that they are, and where does that belief stem from? If it's something learned, where did the original concept come from? What made men decide that there would be certain men that would be "superior" and "authorities"? Is this something that came about strictly because some men decided to take over and be the boss? What gave them the idea to create the concept? I think that the concept already existed.

  It could be that it is a perversion of the parent/child relationship, but still, children grow up and assume the role of parent. So what makes/made people decide to believe in and give authenticity to the concept of superior authorities even when it can detrimentally affect their basic insticts to have enough food and other neccessities for their families? Even when it takes away from their own autonomy?

  It doesn't make sense to me unless "Authority" already exists and we instinctively know it even if we don't identify it as God.
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  Introspection

  So what makes/made people decide to believe in and give authenticity to the concept of superior authorities even when it can detrimentally affect their basic insticts to have enough food and other neccessities for their families? Even when it takes away from their own autonomy?

  Sorry about this, I had addressed this in my original post but there was an error, and I had decided to shorten the response and left this out. Basically, the issue is one of identification with mind. It's clear when your basic material needs aren't being met, but we know people who hold to certain beliefs strongly will ignore common sense. The body is telling you that it's hungry, but the person is ignoring the body in favor of a thought - say when someone goes on an unbalanced diet.

  Consider this for a moment: Authority only has meaning if you view things as separate - you have the one in authority, and the one that submits to authority - it's a hierarchical relationship. The fact is, though, that even among things in an apparent relationship of subject and authority such as the body and the mind, people in a government or whatever, there's influence from both directions.

  If you can't see things that way and must view things in terms of authority, then why don't you follow that instinct? My last reply was mainly in response to the way you stated your conclusion where you said "religious belief." Of course, if you're looking for an answer of ultimate authority, it won't be found in the mind. It's interesting how you referred to the parent/child relationship, can you see how one thought is necessarily dependent upon others? It's relative. You can collect a bunch of information to support this belief and that, but you won't know, you're just trying to reinforce a belief - one way or the other. If you (or anyone) want to know the truth, they have to let go of their preconceived notions, including the idea of authority and even God. If you're willing to do this you may notice the psychological mind feeling uneasy, but at that point the only thing you can see is the truth that isn't influenced by your beliefs. After all, if God is more than just a concept for you, you have nothing to lose but an idea.
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  siegswife

  I'm not sure what you're saying, so I'll try to chew on it before I reply in any depth to what you said.

  My concept of God is that He is and the thing that we as people are missing (or striving for) is the ultimate recognition of being too. Simply put, I believe that eventually people will get to the point that they are God in their expression of self (as in "I AM").

  Before any fundy's accuse me of some sort of blasphemy I want to point out that in the Bible it says that the eventual end (or beginning) will be when "God is all things to everyone". To me, that means that people and everything else will be recognized as God.

  I don't know that my idea or concept of that is wrong, so I don't really wish to get rid of it at this time, thanks.
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  Introspection

  Siegswife, I thought that we were kind of on the same page, and your last reply confirmed that.

  Whether your ideas of anything is 'right or wrong' is not the issue, it's just that those are just ideas, what they point to is the real thing, the ideas themselves are not. (which would include beliefs) What I was proposing is simply an experiment - it's not like people can just throw away a thought and never have it come up again anyways. To put it in other words, reality is not our ideas about it, whether we use the word God or whatever other word. I'm not even saying to make a judgement about the ideas like are they right or wrong, but rather see the irrelevance of it. After all, if you're talking about something along the lines of ultimate reality, how can that change by just a change in your own thinking? You changing your own thinking is just and only that, it does not change the fundamental reality of the universe.

  If this recognition of being is what we're after, then anything else is only so much riffraff, including any and all concepts you have about it. This is what I'm trying to put across here, it's like the difference between a picture of a nice dish and actually eating it. If our ideas can lead to the insane behavior of looking at pictures of food when we're hungry, then wouldn't you say it may be that we should consider putting them on hold so we can take in some of the real thing?
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  Phil

  Most of the people on earth have become members of a belief system through their to exposure to the same religions of their parents. They are raised that way and become reliant on the belief that God will look over them, if they are good, for an eternity. Having said that, this provides comfort to the individual so that they do not have to be concerned about that facit of living in a society such as ours. Some people call it a "CRUTCH". Many of such persons become fanatics and as with the addict, cannot be convinced otherwise.

  For those that do not fit into the above scenerio, we have the addictable person and the free thinker. The addict feels compelled to associate with a belief system and can never or almost never be broken away from their belief including hitting them over the head with it. The free thinker could have been raised in a religious atmosphere or not but elects to think for him or herself and questions everything that is presented to them and applies some logic to the case presented. All atheists, diests and agnostics are in this level of belief. All religions on earth that can be called religions cannot be logically explained. Areligious person will say it can and would be willing to spend a lifetime to "prove" it, but the final result at the end of his or her lifetime would be the same as it was when the subject was first brought up. Belief systems cannot prove what they say nor can evolutionists prove their theory. Belief systems have little to no evidence and rely heavily on conditionning the participants mind. The writer does not consider the Bible as evidence. Evolutionists have only evidence and what they have is quite impressive.

  Of course, any person can possess any combination of the above symptoms. One must never forget that all belief systems have a goal to kidnap one's soul (not the soul as defined by the Bible or other such groups, but the soul that all people possess within their inner being-not God related) to alter it to meet the dictates of the organizers. It is amazing that an organization such as the Jehovah's Witnesses can attract and sustain as many persons as they do. There can't be very many free thinkers in this organization. When they discourage or restrict a person's thinking by discourageing the members from reading literature outside the organization, only a free thinker would see what control such an organization is trying to impose on its members.

  I feel better now that I have said my piece.