There are as many paths to God as there are individuals. This series looks at six of the most well-traveled paths for contemporary believers.
This final path to God crosses all the other ones at various points. People on the path of confusion run hot and cold with their childhood faith -- finding it relatively easy to believe in God at times, almost impossible at others. They haven't "fallen away" but they've not stayed connected. They cry out to God in prayer and then wonder why there doesn't seem to be an answer. They intuit God's presence during important moments, and perhaps even during religious services, but find themselves bothered by the problems of belonging to their church, synagogue or mosque. They may pray from time to time, particularly in dire need, and they may go to services on key holidays.
But for this group, finding God is a mystery, a worry or a problem.
The main benefit of this path is that it often helps people to fine-tune their approach to their childhood faith. Unlike those who consider themselves clearly religious or clearly non-religious, these people have not yet made up their minds, and so are constantly refining their ideas about a religious commitment.
But confusion can lapse into laziness. The feeling that makes a person avoid worship services because a particular critique easily mutates into a decision not to do so because it's too much work, or because it takes too much energy to belong to a group that demands charity and forgiveness.
Much of my adult life, before entering the Jesuits, the Catholic religious order to which I belong, was spent on this path. As a boy, I was raised in a loving family with a lukewarm Catholic background. My family went to church regularly but we didn't engage in those practices that mark very religious Catholics -- saying grace at meals, speaking regularly about God, praying before going to bed, and attending Catholic schools. But in college I grew increasingly confused about God.
After a friend's death and another friend's mysterious response to his death (see "The Path of Exploration") moved me to give God another chance, I returned to church, but in a desultory way. I wasn't sure exactly what, or who, I believed in. So for several years God the Problem Solver was replaced by a more amorphous spiritual concept: God the Life Force, God the Other, God the Far Away One. While these are valid images of God, I had no idea that God could be anything but those abstract ideas. And I figured that things would stay that way until I died.
Then, at age 26, I came home one night after work and turned on the television set. After graduation, I had taken a job with General Electric, but was beginning to grow dissatisfied with the work. After six years of working late at night and on the weekends, I had also started to develop stress-related stomach problems and was wondering how much more I could take.
On television that night was a documentary about Thomas Merton, a man who had turned his back on a dissolute life to enter a Trappist monastery in the early 1940s. Something about the expression on his face spoke to me: his countenance radiated a peace that to me seemed unknown, or at least forgotten. The show was so interesting that the next day I purchased and began reading Merton's autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain.
Gradually, I discovered within myself a desire to do something similar to what Thomas Merton had done; maybe not join a monastery (since I'm too talkative) but somehow lead a more contemplative, more religious, life.
That experience helped me to step off the path of confusion and put me on a path of belief, which led to the Jesuits, which led to the priesthood, and which led, more importantly, to a relationship with the One whom I had been seeking.
This series has looked at the six paths on which many contemporary believers seem to travel to God. Each has its benefits and pitfalls. Each, if followed sincerely by the seeker of God, will lead to God. You may find yourself on one path at one point in your life then, suddenly, another. You may feel yourself on several paths at once.
But to the seeker who feels lost, remember: As much as you are seeking God, God is seeking you even more.
James Martin, SJ is a Jesuit priest, culture editor of America magazine, and author of 'The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life', from which this series has been adapted.
Rick Hamlin: What Saying Grace Says About You
Oprah's gospel — Entertainment mogul preaches 'many paths' to God
Rev. James Martin, S.J.: 6 Paths to God: The Path of Independence
Even though all this miss direction can motivate one to escape the material world itself. Escaping into the CAVE of Meditation for its JOY and Bliss. Surely not of these material things.
But are we not suppose to bring back peace of that mediation in our waking state. Unfortunately, the contrast is almost a shock to me. I know we are suppose to hide our joy otherwise we might attract negative energy. But today a smile and even a look of contentment can brings negative energy. Not that discussion to simply enlighten another of the cause of the mess or spiritual ways can bring negative energy.
Such is the life of a Spiritual Warrior and least we know there is a battle. And winning the battle is sure easy when the material world is so insane..
.
Christ taught each person should choose between Flesh (material life) or Spirit (spiritual life)
In the body which we are until the flesh dies, we should enjoy the material life. Christ said be in the world, but not of the world. Take no thought for tomorrow, what you should eat, what you should where. Seek ye the Kindom of Heavan (Spirit) and all things will be added upon you
By deep meditation and contact with the GREAT SPIRIT you bring that energy back to the material world so you function even better materially. We live in joy here and there. We just do not get stuck on wealth, ego, and material suffering
-------------
I love being in the body and doing "body things". I especially like doing certain body things with women.
Now, I do agree with some of what you said. We have become too materialistic.
Individually you should not be stuck on sex. Which does not mean you cannot have good sex. In your interactions like Krishna you must be Karma Neutral. Smiles and not Sorrow. You must not leave emotional and physical attachment baggage behind your self actions. Like leaving decease, unwanted children, abuse, etc. Otherwise you are lost in body action and doing evil.
You must evolve beyond sex the lowest level of attachment in the material world to expand your consciousness beyond body. Does not mean abstinence, but freeing the shackles of physical desires
And what of Noche Oscura (the challenge to San Juan de la Cruz)?
So Enki began the process of genetic designing once again,using the seeds that were stored.However a major genetic difference was made:he gave the Earthlings wisdom and knowledge,but not eternal life.
'Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said unto the woman "Yea hath God said ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden" The woman said "We may eat fruit from the trees,but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said 'Ye shall not eat of neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.'And the serpent said unto the woman,"Ye sall not surely die for God doth know in the day ye eat thereof,then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods,knowing good and evil... Gen 3:1-5
http://thinkunity.com
But the movie of the material world when you return was better as a comedy or even a drama. When for 4000 years the man could evolve with a lot less material survival effort. Today it is as though you have awaken in a monster movie and the RICH and Poor have found SECULARISM and GROUP COMMUNITY "accept it the way it is" or you are not living in MODERN TIMES, you should volunteer for free for Public Servants who are well paid. Replacing the material struggle and freedom with holding hands and singing KUMBYA
LOL :) enjoy
worship what and whom???????
would a deity that has infinite awareness desire to be worshiped. I think not. man does but only in their ignorance. we are expressions of that that is. we are the dynamic aspect of this infinite most call god. without us and indeed all life itself there is no expression just isness. awareness is not dynamic but consciousness is dynamic. intelligence must express, it must create, it is the necessity of infinite to create and express.
create might be better defined as manifest but to believe that materialism creates consciousness passes no logic test. the materialist confuses cause and effect. the religious in a way do the same by making a god in their image.
the christian belief that the wrath of god and its unconditional love demanded atonement. how is for passing a logic test? not.
"But to the seeker who feels lost, remember: As much as you are seeking God, God is seeking you even more".
this makes god in a human image. as long as we see infinite separate from us we will continue to worship a deity that does not exist and cannot exist if we understand infinite, and will never exist. infinite does not seek; infinite is. souls seek awareness just as a baby seeks to walk.
infinite is all and all; we are as aspect of that all and all.
2 Corinthians 4:18
'While our minds are not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are for a time; but the things which are not seen are eternal.'
How do you know that something you don't see is there, unless until someone tells you it's there? That's what parenthood is for.
That is what Christ, Buddha and Krishna taught each in their own way but the same result what ever name was used.
Church as you say is not necessarily teachers of these great mens teaching
Aum tat sat.
Come on all you guys. Show me your "fastball."
Supersymmetry basically says that "in the beginning, all of the forces of the Universe were somehow bonded together in some Grand Unified Field theory.
1. How did all of these forces come into existence in the first place?
2. If you can answer #1 (Even Stephen Hawking CAN'T), then explain how and why Supersymmetry destabilized into "The Universe?"
I'll bet that NONE OF YOU CAN ANSWER QUESTION #1.
Honestly, I'm wondering if this is something we'll ever know for certain.
Somebody's got their "thinking cap" on.
It's really very simple actually. If the age of the universe were infinite, then you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.
It's called: "HEAT DEATH": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
Let me explain:
Bob works third shift at a local factory. He comes home and finds that although it's winter, the hood of his wife Marsha's car is very warm. He asks his wife, "hey honey, have you been home all night? Marsha replies, "yes, I have."
Bob, intuitively applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics, already knows something is wrong. Because, if Marsha's car had NOT been moved all night, it would be COLD.
The same is with the Universe. If the Age of the Universe were INFINITY, then the Universe would be cold beyond belief. All energy would essentially be dead.
Don't get me wrong, though. I am a Christian Democrat - but, I'm also an Engineer. I believe that since the very existence of the Universe was more or less "impossible" - then That Which Created the Universe, is obviously capable of ANYTHING.
No intelligent man would say something like that seriously.
There are many roads and paths but they all lead to Jerusalem, eventually if you know enough to know that is where you want to arrive.
It all goes back to the provision that Abraham said that God would provide on Mt Moriah just outside of Jerusalem. Our Creator Himself is the only one who can do anything for us because no one else can.
- "I will destroy ... both man and beast."
God is angry. He decides to destroy all humans, beasts, creeping things, fowls, and "all flesh wherein there is breath of life." He plans to drown them all. 6:7, 17
- "Every living substance that I have made will I destroy."
God repeats his intention to kill "every living substance ... from off the face of the earth." But why does God kill all the innocent animals? What had they done to deserve his wrath? It seems God never gets his fill of tormenting animals. 7:4
- God tells Abram to kill some animals for him. The needless slaughter makes God feel better. 15:9-10
- God kills everyone (men, women, children, infants, newborns) in Sodom and Gomorrah by raining "fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." Well, almost everyone -- he spares the "just and righteous" Lot and his family.19:24
- God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5
The worlds knowledge is filled with GREAT Teachers whose methods lead many men to enlightenment, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammad and to not know Christ by calling him the Old Testament is a huge void of knowledge. He taught each person as did the others to Self Realize. In is his teaching righteousness (right actions) of good over evil and all men good or evil will receive eternal life. Not these claims of fear and damnation of the Ol. But JOY and Bliss.
— Woody Allen
Everyone has the key.
Psychokinesis cloudbusting is our gift.
During periods of existential crisis, people resort to a historical religious doctrine of which they are familiar. Some don't. I didn't and my mind and spirit has never been more at peace - its been about 30 years now. I guess I found the right path.
Just because you have no conflict does not mean you have a clear conscience or true peace. Someone who is drugged has no apparent conflict either and that does not mean they have the light of life.
But Buddha taught emptiness and living NOW. Seems more your style. I am of the more Tibetan Buddhist Clan of Christina Raja Yoga. We join our little spirit to the ONE SPIRIT.
But each must pursue our path. If our spirits were the same in this separation we would not all be here
InJOY1111
Alterego tells us that he/she has found peace without god. And the two of you have the nerve to tell him (I'll go with "him") that he hasn't really found peace because he didn't find it your ways (which are different from each other). What arrogance!
------------------
Paths to nowhere!
gardens of the goddess; the result is that her gardens
are neglected while we wander endlessly . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjIOjY3s-jc its a four part.
I will not let you wander, my friend.