Spirituality for Living

The Kabbalah is Jewish esotericism. It’s a bit more widely known than people realize, and some of its arguments are arrived at and used by people who aren’t Kabbalists. The basic concept is that Gods essence is incomprehensible to us, and though Christians criticise this mysticism they still use that idea. The universe exists as [...]

When Jesus went into his meditative retreat, it came to mind that he could claim power. He was being heralded as the next King of Israel, as well as the messiah, and he confronted these. He didn’t just ward himself against the devil, nor was his purity evident in being untouched by darkness, but quite [...]

The idea of ‘that is me’… I have an idea of who I am, and honestly it’s not a very interesting idea. It isn’t very fun, so since I like interesting ideas and fun, I look around. Where am I now really? Do I know everything about what is here? What can I do here?
In [...]

The Buddha rejected the way of the ascetic, but people get hung up on his view of attachments and miss his message. Avoidance can be an attachment, and no insult intended if you are Christian, but in my experience those most concerned with Satan are Christians. They are more concerned about Satan and evil than [...]

Many spiritual groups don’t welcome dark feelings or dark sentiments in their functions. We don’t have this prejudice on Reflection Island, and our Spiritual Darkness class is to give that its place in our awareness. I would like to start by offering the floor to anyone who would like to share some element of darkness [...]

You can claim nothing, say you embody all personality types and have nothing to use or build on, or you can get down to application. We can be nice and religious about this, but are my strengths your strengths?  There are things that are me, and there are things that are you. For me visual imagery, [...]

The different schools of Gnosis have differing attitudes about reality and the creator. From Jehovah being genuinely evil to just being fallible, and from any partaking of reality as being damning of yourself to the problem being misperception of reality.
Asceticism? Yes. To a most meditative attitude, mostly. Some say you can’t achieve gnosis without abstinence. [...]

The Gnostic divinities are in the realm of the emanation. In the realm of self knowledge. Gnosis is a quality of the individual emanation, and not a body of knowledge that is fixed and must be accepted. Mandean and Manichean Gnosticism even reached China.
To know yourself is to know God, i.e. all divinities? Yes, exactly.
For [...]

Does obligation have to be a suffering? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t have to be a suffering, but it only ceases to be a suffering when we see that we chose that set of obligations, and recognize why we do. See ourselves in it.
But, but, but aren’t we “obliged“ to suffer?  Yes. They tell us [...]

Is there a good kind of shame to have? No. Shame is useless. Shame is also not conscience, though they are often equated. Who are encouraged to have shame more, men or women?
Women, to be kept in their place. Women have powerful intuitive insights and strong instincts, more so than even men. Men’s instincts are [...]