The discussion has begun to branch out towards how people live life a bit more generally. I'll include more than in the previous post, where I left out everything tangential, at the cost of making it not only short but "murky".
(05-15-2020, 02:36 PM)peregrine Wrote: [ -> ] (05-15-2020, 05:20 AM)Asolsutsesvyl Wrote: [ -> ]I would say it has grown over a period of years. But initially, it was like something smaller within something larger, cultivated through effort and focus. Leading to an inner transition I cannot describe usefully. Half a decade later, it is more like a background to inner experience, while all the rest usually takes attention from the background when present.
Usually, I do not think in terms of faith, so it was useful to have it pointed towards in such a way.
Rationally, I do not see my life going in any particular direction, and don't find it particularly sensible or meaningful. Faith may be a good word for what makes the difference between feeling bad about life seeming to go nowhere, and somehow feeling quite differently and not heavily while seeing the same thing. I mean a calm lightness which is not a numbness, but replaces the heaviest feelings all the same.
"Believe" it or not, I "think" I can feel through the murkiness of your comment sufficiently to catch your drift. What you describe reminds me of a frog egg in the mass of jelly (smaller thing in larger thing) which finally becomes a tadpole and swims around more or less randomly (without going anywhere) as it developes form (legs, head...I mean, deeper awareness of self on various levels). Someday, my friend, you may grow up to be a frog. In the meanwhile, your faith in the general process, some would say, is something worthy of your nurture and warmth.
You got a main part of what I had in mind with that metaphor: inner life having changed greatly, comparing a few before-and-after stages. In not really being clear where I am going, at present in life, I've also been thinking of that as currently moving through a "corridor of change" of uncertain length.
One detail leads things around in a curious circle, the idea of "faith in the general process". Before the current stage of growth of faith, I had something else. I was very deeply, and rigidly, devoted to the best abstract ideals I could find; that was my spirituality before mid-2015. It was all personal discipline while pulled between abstract hopes and fears. What I called faith back then is very abstract, concerned with the big picture of everything and not something which greatly touches life in practice.
The change happening after that is impossible to describe well in writing. But the newer personal process which began resulted in the destruction of the old main hopes, fears, and discipline. In their absence, there's now the current stage of growth of faith. The faith is almost like something which is there instead of a vacuum.
Everything old which remains in such a way that it is there instead of the faith begins to feel very tiring. But the transition from what is old and tiring, to something which is somehow free from that, seems slow and gradual.
(05-15-2020, 06:06 AM)Jeremy Wrote: [ -> ]Does discipline have more to do with faith or belief or is it more causality? Does belief begin the process then once the discipline has been honed turn into faith based upon the constant work upon the self? Or can you wholeheartedly have faith without the work at all?
Some grow into faith more naturally or easily than others, and so it is with all other spiritual qualities I know of as well.
For me, in hindsight, discipline came from belief. The group I learned with considers itself beyond belief and the limitations of belief systems, because it believes that what it believes is true, making it the truth instead of a belief system - but I can no longer swallow such games. All the ideas I held true which are connected to hope, fear, and effort (and more) are plainly beliefs, when viewed with simple intellectual honesty.
A little bit of faith may have been there all along, the part which came naturally and easily. But all the rest came after discipline led to a change in inner life.
Some teachings describe a pure drop of faith in the heart as the main result or achievement of the spirituality which relates to the heart. The type of faith which is there even in the complete absence of optimism may be of such a nature, perhaps.
(05-15-2020, 02:36 PM)peregrine Wrote: [ -> ] (05-15-2020, 06:06 AM)Jeremy Wrote: [ -> ]This is absolutely the most difficult aspect of the material yet, I would say, the most basic as well which yet again we find ourselves in a paradox. This illusion is so complex and well designed by ways of the veil that I find it practically impossible to stay within the mindset that all is truly well. To have that faith and steadfast attitude in every waking moment seems unattainable in my eyes though I'll freely admit that it's due to a lack of discipline more than anything else.
I would see your first clause above and raise you one. That is, I think this is one of the most difficult aspects, not just of the material, but of wandering here in 3D. To have faith in every waking moment--and during sleep as well--is such a vital requisite for doing serious work in consciousness (deeply engaging many levels of self), and yet it is, oh, so challenging!
Yes, I think you're onto something with the idea of discipline, but maybe not in the sense of guarding over and goading yourself to move in the "correct" direction. Perhaps the discipline is more about developing a habit of peripherally looking back at self in each present moment to see how deeply one is resonating with that deeper sense of self? And when one notices that resonance could be deepened, then allowing it to drop a bit deeper into that area of self that doesn't think, but knows the world by knowing it self? After all, we're here to know ourselves by seeing our reflection in 3D mirrors, right? Then perhaps we also can know 3D by feeling it reflected in the still pool of our own depths?
Perhaps flofrog has further perspective to add?
(05-16-2020, 01:36 AM)flofrog Wrote: [ -> ]so about faith... [...] So you know I have a feeling that that kind of faith is very close to unconditional love, and it is faith because our dad was always, always an optimist and he used to tease us saying, you are not going to be a pessimist, it is such an easy way !!!
It is quite a contrast to the mentality I've had. Maybe it is not really pessimism which is the big difference, but rather being very deeply alienated and, even though caring a lot when relating to individuals, being very cynical and misanthropic when considering humanity in general and the big picture.
Your family story is one more story where one of the themes is that some people can go through a lot of difficult things and still be really optimistic.
A kind of counter-theme is in the distanced, weird nerds who, when asked how they arrived at their bitter, cynical and disillusioned views, simply respond that they have because they have been thinking. (It may not be a very good response, the word "thinking", but it is a honest best effort at a good response.) That's how I was in the mid-00's.
One of several possible keys to such differences may be the "sense of self" that a person has. My guess is that, in the case of your dad, it was large and well-developed, with a good sense of personal identity.
Whereas there are persons who have undersized and poorly-developed senses of self, with a very vague sense of who and what they really are beyond having a reliable memory of facts of their lives. Such a lack of identity is a separate question from how strongly principled or idealistic a person may be. But people with poorly developed senses of self have no way of knowing what is and is not important or serious from a more mature perspective. As a result, inner responses are simplified regarding that, making a person either unusually serious or unusually unserious, very generally.
Perhaps people with unusually good senses of self can survive anything without becoming less positive. While people with unusually poor senses of self, if they see some things deeply, can easily become embittered and cynical early in life.
