Mysteriously not posted on the SRB

This is a reply I wrote on Feb 22 and resent several times to the SRB with
no response at all. This is a test to see if it works on the TRB

"Douglas McAdam" <douglasmcadam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:bc20fcf3ca829fcaf90d675e157d74aa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Okay, Doug, had a nice dinner, ready to finish up this message:
Therefore our power to know and love should be directed towards fulfilling
that purpose and if so then we are becoming our true spiritual selves and
thus spirituality is the outcome.

Does not follow logically, first, that since we are created for "servitude"
(and you haven't shown me that we were created for servitude) therefore our
powers should be directed toward servitude. It is kind of like saying I
built a cabinet to hold nails, therefore it should hold nails. So what if
it doesn't? Is it an unhappy cabinet? Certainly it can serve other
purposes. I can use it for a ladder or a bulletin board.

In any case, you seem to be suggesting that God somehow intices us or has
built the universe in such a way as to make it run better if we submit to
His laws. I will accept that. My quibble is that you say this logically
follows from our ordained purpose, and I don't think that the rules of logic
are such that it does follow Although for other reasons the assertion is
true.

Secondly it does not follow that, even if we are happier, or entices, or
ordained to follow God's laws that we will therefore become our true
spiritual selves. It may be true for other reasons, but it does not follow.
If you have other reasons I will hear them, but I do not accept that our
true spiritual self is any other self than the self that we see every
minute of every day.

To be more specific we are also told that our purpose is to acquire virtues
and these virtues are manifested by Baha'u'llah to us who also named them,
such as honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, courtesy, etc. and He warned us
that if we do not acquire these virtues the void will be filled with a
human fault.

That may be true. Are you saying that spirituality is embodied in virtues?
I think you are right. I think the more virtues we have the more spiritual
we are. That spirituality is the same thing as the divine, the higher self,
the best we can be. If we strive for that we are striving for spirituality,
and as we do that we acquire virtues and become more spiritual.

However this spirituality is in augmentative degrees as the Writings
pointed out.
What? Maybe here you should give a quote, because I don't know what you
think the writings say.

What may be virtuous in the animal level is faulty in the human level and
virtue in the human level might be faulty in the spiritual level.

Virtuous animals? That is a contradiction in terms. I think a virtue is
spiritual, and it can only be at the spiritual level, above the human
(non-physical) level. Of course one human might be capable only of
babysteps toward spirituality, say, not yelling at someone, while another
might be capable of giving their all to help a fellow human.

...we can easily get caught up in the Kingdom of Names as we are told in
the Writings. In the Seven Valleys it says-
"It is clear to thy Eminence that all the variations which the wayfarer
in the stages of his journey beholdeth in the realms of being, proceed
from his own vision."

Which has nothing to do with the Kingdom of Names. In the quote, is the
point that the wayfarer can only see what is in his line of sight? Or that
he has in his vision all the variations of the realms of being? The short
quote does not make it clear. Why did you quote it?

In any case you have answered the question to the best of your ability.
Thank you for that.

--Kent







Dear Kent-
I am at a loss to know how to answer you but it seems to me there is some
confusion about what spirituality means, which is how this all began if I
remember correctly. So I will try again.

If it is true that Baha'u'llah is a Manifestation of God and He gives us
truth in His Revelation and then tells us that we are created to know and
worship (love) God then logically it seems to me that we have an innate
desire to know and love God. Also if it is true what He says about our
station in life, i.e. that we are created in that station of Servitude
then we also not only have an inner desire to know and love God but a
desire to serve God and humanity. Therefore our power to know and love
should be directed towards fulfilling that purpose and if so then we are
becoming our true spiritual selves and thus spirituality is the outcome.
To be more specific we are also told that our purpose is to acquire
virtues and these virtues are manifested by Baha'u'llah to us who also
named them, such as honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, courtesy, etc. and
He warned us that if we do not acquire these virtues the void will be
filled with a human fault.

Logically then I can see that if we are displaying human faults, such as
anger, unkindness, rudeness, etc. then we would not be manifesting
spirituality but if we manifest their opposite virtues such as love,
kindness, courtesy and the like then we are showing our spirituality.
Thus virtues and spirituality go hand in hand, we cannot have one without
the other.

However this spirituality is in augmentative degrees as the Writings
pointed out. What may be virtuous in the animal level is faulty in the
human level and virtue in the human level might be faulty in the spiritual
level. For example kill of be killed is an act of the animal level and it
is the animal virtue to have the powers to do so. But this is not what we
call successful human relations and thus it is faulty at that level.

The problem I see is that all these terms are names we have assigned to
conditions we observe in this world and we can easily get caught up in the
Kingdom of Names as we are told in the Writings. In the Seven Valleys it
says-
"It is clear to thy Eminence that all the variations which the wayfarer
in the stages of his journey beholdeth in the realms of being, proceed
from his own vision."

"Knowledge is a single point which the foolish have multiplied."

Spirituality then, to me, is that condition that evolves from our innate
desire to know and love God and to fulfill our purpose of servitude. Our
physical senses, intellect and power of faith all should be unified by
being turned to and used for this overall purpose and the outer
expressions of this process will be seen as a virtuous person. I doubt
there is such a thing as a non spiritual person. We are all spiritual
beings who manifest this spirituality in unique and various levels of
development.

God bless,
doug





On Feb 22, 2006, at 10:16 AM, Kent Johnson wrote:

"Douglas McAdam" <douglasmcadam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:a5a1cb8737f36ea4745fc0e1adf9abaf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I do not understand how you can make this conclusion from what Bill
said.
Probably this confusion on my part is once again due to the limitations
of
emails.
Let's see. Is the conclusion ..."that would mean that people don't
recognize spirituality"

Bill said: "A person achieves "Spirituality" by following a virtuous
life,
spirituality doesn't bring about virtue, however virtue does bring about
spirituality"

Follow with me. A spiritual person is not necessarily virtuous.
"However"
a virtuous person is necessarily spiritual.

What does that say about recognizing spirituality? Not too much. I
guess I
read an implication that seeking spirituality will lead to virtue and I
don't see the reason to seek. Hence my questions about why I would seek
spirituality if it means modifying my behavior.

You lead me to the best answer I have yet heard, that only because past
behavior hasn't worked that one seeks spirituality. But you don't see it
that way, you think it is because we have a hard-wired need to know and
worship God. I can't sell that one, but I guess it could be the
mechanism
behind a frustration that nothing else works.

Anyway, did I answer your question?

--Kent








On Feb 20, 2006, at 12:05 PM, Kent Johnson wrote:

"Bill Pike" <w.h.pike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uqaiv1ho0d68tejmbd4juuqfm20794eb0b@xxxxxxxxxx

A person achieves "Spirituality" by following a virtuous life,
spirituality
doesn't bring about virtue, however virtue does bring about
spirituality<

You may be right about that, Bill. But that would mean that people
don't
recognize spirituality. I mean, if I can't seek spirituality without
changing behavior then why the heck would I seek spirituality? It is
like
saying "I want to change my behavior", not "I want of find God". If I
want
to find God, how will I find out that I have to change my behavior in
order
to find Him?

Dear Kent-
I do not understand how you can make this conclusion from what Bill
said.
Probably this confusion on my part is once again due to the limitations
of
emails.

All we can know are the effects of things. What are the effects of
spirituality? Well Bill said it would be virtues and I agree.
Spirituality is reflected in the type of behaviors we have and the type
of
behavior depends on virtues. For example without the virtue of honesty
our behavior would be to lie. A liar is thus not virtuous in terms of
being truthful and thus is not manifesting spirituality as such.

People change behavior to seek spirituality, I have done that myself.
But I
need to know that first step. Maybe I am not asking the question
correctly,
but what I need to know is what people are seeking in a church,
synagog,
mosque, Baha'i meeting.... What is it they are seeking, if it is not
spirituality, and how can they know if they have found it? Is changing
behavior the only way? If I have changed my behavior I am now
spiritual?

Not sure I understand this either. People are seeking what has been
given
us as spiritual innate knowledge. We are created to know and worship
God
and thus we have an innate desire to do this. We seek to fulfill this
quest but we often look in the wrong places due to the type of knowledge
we have. People seek after riches, things, power and other ego related
wants and desires only to realize they themselves will not fulfill this
inner urge to become spiritual and so finally they turn to religion and
may find there also some degree of fulfillment until they meet someone
who
appears to them to be more spiritual or to have some inner peace and
tranquility they long for themselves. They may even feel threatened by
meeting a more spiritual person. Why would a truly religious and
spiritual person need to feel threatened by meeting someone of a
different
religion if they themselves are truly spiritual? My feeling is that we
run into a problem when we "feel" we have "found it" for then they stop
seeking. For example we Baha'is feel we have found the Supreme
Manifestation for today but we also know this is simply the beginning of
our seeking for greater spirituality in terms of living our lives more
spiritually, more morally, ethically and virtuous. If we stop seeking
perfections we may be spiritually dying in a way. We have an inner
need,
a built in desire to know and love God, to serve God and humanity by
gaining more realistic knowledge and behaving accordingly.

Before being a Baha'i I thought I knew a lot but when I declared and
then
when I studied the Baha'i Writings I began to feel like an ant in this
awesome spiritual universe. Sure I can see my behavior now is more
spiritual than that of 35 years ago when I was an addict and displaying
other materialistic behaviors but when I consider the awesomeness of
infinitude, or eternality and the never ending perfections I feel like a
spiritual mineral, just beginning to course my way up the spiritual path
of evolution towards God.

When I found Baha'u'llah I "just knew" I had reached the goal of my
seeking. I could "feel it" and was not in need of proofs. It was
axiomatic. I had a personal miracle and that confirmed the whole
experience and then what came next was the striving to obey, to live the
life and that is the hard part and there are times when I "just know" I
am
not doing so. So I guess I really know more about when I'm not being
spiritual than when I am. It still seems to boil down to virtues. And
I
think virtues come from selfless acts of love and if they are selfless
then we probably would not know about it unless someone points it out to
us.


When I ask non-Baha'is I have no problem getting very cogent answers.
If
you have been reading anything I have been involved with on theSRB you
see
how hard it is to get answers from Baha'is. Many churches in the area
are
very good at evoking spirituality in their membership, many are not so
good.
But I think Baha'is should be able to identify and to some extent
define
spirituality if that is what we have to offer.

Tell me Kent, if you are asking what is spirituality, or what is the
definition of it then how do you know churches are good at evoking it or
not? How would you know what is a cogent answer or not?

If we are not offering spirituality to seekers, what is it we are
offering?
(beyond the Writings, I mean.)

I answered this previously

God bless,
doug


--Kent




On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 10:00:27 CST, "Kent Johnson" <kent@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

My interest, Richard, is a good definition of satisfying spiritual
life.
If
I could define and prescribe what people find in their varied
religious
practices that which makes them feel spiritual, gives them joy, and
enhances
their lives, I would love to write it down. Here is what the House
of
Justice says:

Dear Kent,
According to my understanding, Spirituality is a resultant not a
action. A person achieves "Spirituality" by following a virtuous
life, spirituality doesn't bring about virtue, however virtue does
bring about spirituality.

Pax Terra
O SON OF MY HANDMAID!
Guidance hath ever been given by words, and now it is given by deeds.
Every one must show forth deeds that are pure and holy, for words are
the property of all alike, whereas such deeds as these belong only to
Our loved ones. Strive then with heart and soul to distinguish
yourselves by your deeds. In this wise We counsel you in this holy and
resplendent tablet. Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: One Common Faith
    ... you seem to be suggesting that God somehow intices us or has ... follows from our ordained purpose, and I don't think that the rules of logic ... and these virtues are manifested by Baha'u'llah to us who also named them, ... Are you saying that spirituality is embodied in virtues? ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)
  • Re: "Psychic Power" is Prohibited, so is this too?
    ... When we are obedient and acquire virtues and use these powers for the proper purpose they become more fully able to be expressed. ... reason to pursue religion and spirituality. ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)
  • Re: TRY TO BE A BAHAI
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    (talk.religion.bahai)
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    (alt.fan.harry-potter)
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