mauGR1

Nah, i was telling him as politely as i could, that his assumption about a bunch of posters following the same cult, is not correct. On the karma, i think it might be, and probably is, that for most evolved souls, the cycle of death and rebirth is an easy game that they've done a 1000 times. That process may be not that easy for those who avoid just considering the issue. There are not a lot of people though who are accepting death as a part of life, most people don't like to talk about it.

I like the term mumbo-jumbo, it sounds funny, although it smells a little of "white- supremacist". If you look better, you may find that every one of the very few regular contributors have different ideas. How different, you have no idea ????

I don't think it's that simple. Many acclaimed gurus explain karma in different ways. There's something though, I'd like to say. If " samsara" (the cycle of life and death) is real, and i believe is real, the man has the potential to transcend that dual reality, by acquiring consciousness. As long as we are prisoners of a physical body, with its physical desires though, we are living in a linear time,while occasionally, being able to imagine, with the highest part of our intellectual being, to transcend time/space. If I'm allowed a metaphor, it's like contemplating the top of a mountain from afar, and planning to climb it to the top. I know i can do it, but i know that i need some equipment. So, here we are, trying to figure out what equipment we need to climb that mountain ( or transcending time/space)

I think karma exists, and I've heard many explanations, some more convincing than others. Perhaps it's true that a number of people find a little comfort in this belief, but i don't see anything wrong with it.

Agree, and the majority of the folks literally freak out if you speak them about religion and gods , so better avoid the subject altogether.

No, i don't think so, honestly ???? It's, for me, more a physical impression of the vastness of the world and the skies. .. but maybe i understand your point.. if you're saying that the man is born to be free , i agree !

That's correct, i guess, as you say it's a subjective impression of mine. I guess , generally speaking, that such opinion is not very popular in the western world anymore. But that's it, thanks to you too for your thoughtful posts.

Congratulations, i like Morcheeba very much, great melodies that often come seemingly spontaneous to my head. Having a garden and the time to design it must be one of the greatest joy, and keep you busy and slim too????

Yes, perhaps it's possible, but what i call the anthropocentric vision can easily sunk a person into a materialistic vision, in other words, it doesn't seem to me that the world in general is getting better with the adoration of the physical. People are better imho, if they have something higher to look up to, even if this something is a more or less conscious product of one's imagination.

Yes, i think so. Humans are "jivas" ,or individual souls, which implies responsibility for their actions. You can see that also in popular sayings, like:" there are not bad dogs, but there are bad owners ".

Yep, that's it, and dogs are another group soul, and so are lions and giraffes. Other kinds of group souls are those ideologies, tribes, even, to some extent, countries and football team fans who are aware of some kind of unity of intents.

The concept of " group soul" which is apparently meeting some skepticism, is already on google. How many folks are able to entertain that concept, i don't know.

The other day i read a lecture from my favourite master, according to whom, all feelings of uneasiness, including mental health issues,come from our own selfishness. I had a hard look at myself, and i have the impression that it's almost always true. Of course there's not a magical formula for everyone to feel better, we are all different... but everyone, i guess, has to mediate between one's sacred individuality, and the not less sacred concept of brotherhood . If i had to simplify this, i could say that doing good things for the others is a safe way to happiness, but, there are many if and buts... there's not even consensus of what is "good".

Thanks, quite informative, but just on the biological aspect, which can be similar, but not identical in different persons or personalities. The mystery i was referring to, is the fact that feelings cannot imho be explained just in a biological way. It seems that the biological mechanism can influence the feelings, but it's also true that feelings can influence our biological mechanism. If one sees those complex interactions as the connection between spirit and soul, and soul and physical body, there's plenty of mysteries to be uncovered. If one's satisfied with just the biological explanation, that's ok, but it's not enough for others.

Yes, that's interesting, I've been reading, unfortunately without much attention, a lecture about the heart seen as a sort of brain. And it's indeed not by chance that the heart is associated to those mysterious bunch of feelings and emotions which are collectively labeled as "love ".

Good post, most of the points would deserve a lengthy discussion, but let's say that the old testament is open to many interpretations, and surely it has been corrupted and wrongly translated in the millennia, some parts even totally omitted, because not functional with the narrative of the empires. Imho, tales like the great flood are oral traditions antecedent to the script, and apparently all the populations of the new and the old world share similar stories. Even Tolkien mentions a sunken continent in his interpretation of ancient northern legends. Strange ruins around the world have possibly survived huge cataclysmic events. Recently , theories about the ancient gods being in fact visitors from space abound, and some even say they could have been visitors from the future, or parallel universes. Some even swear that the " visitors from space" are already here, and have been here a long time. Well, other people believe everything they see on the tv, and that's worrying me, and I'm afraid that all this sophisticated technology is drastically, too drastically altering our lifestyle. I think that belief in a creator god is not more silly than belief in the big bang.

Amen to that, but then one can also say that natural science is restricted to physical, measurable phenomena. Thus, saying that something which is not measurable, and unprovable by physical means doesn't exist, is a bit of a stretch imho.

I would say definitely yes. Although it's not easy to describe the invisible ????

In a way i pretty much agree. I guess it's about from which point of view you are looking at it. As far as I'm concerned, I'm living in the linear time, in the spiraling time and in the eternal present altogether. Not sure if that make sense to you though ????

I've been trying for years to explain with my words, and it's been totally unsuccessful. I think that @Tippaporns definitions are quite similar to mine. However, it's most important to remove some prejudice and try to understand with an open mind. Personally i find Rudolf Steiner's dissertation on his book "Theosophy" very clear, but other people may find other books more inspiring.

Yes, the law of cause and effect works on all planes of reality, that's imho one of the basic laws of the nature and the supernatural. Of course to reach a perfect understanding of those laws is a tough job.. I find always useful to compare natural science to what spiritual masters have to say on the subject.

I have to say that i agree with you most of the time, nonetheless, for some reason, i feel compelled to talk about ????

Humm, are you confusing me and savethefrogs ? Just to make things clear, i agree on most of your definitions of "soul".

That's true, and i never thought that "throwing stones " could solve anything, but here we're just talking, right ? However, a passive acceptance of injustice is not solving any issue. I find " Popper's paradox" quite interesting in this regard, pls have a look if you don't know it already.

Perhaps i was being too subtle ???? Well, the new scientism cult denies the existence of the soul, that's in my view a subtle attack on subjective reality. .. as for the subtlety of it all, roughly 70% of mankind don't ask questions, but follow blindly.