My spiritual blog & articles - My Spiritual Coach

Can atheists achieve enlightenment? If yes, what is the prescribed path for such people?

2/25/2022

Atheists can be among the most enlightened beings on this earth. They are not following any organized religious dogma and prefer to think things through. If they are good people, it is because they choose to be good. Not because some God in the sky is looking down on them, ready to dole out punishments for every infraction and every “sin.”

If they are good, it is because they reasoned it out that it feels better to be a good person and not intentionally inflict harm on others. Not because they bribe “God” with promises and sacrifices to gain favor and possibly go to heaven. An atheist might even think the standardized view of heaven is boring. Besides, all this heaven and hell business is putting things off into the future, while the enlightened life is living totally in the Now.

It might even be argued that organized religions are a deterrent to enlightenment, especially if they discourage followers from arriving at their own conclusions and encourage them to rely on the leadership to tell them what’s right, what’s wrong, and why they are going to hell after they die, according to some book created by people long ago.

Atheists have allowed themselves to be individual thinkers and can achieve deep, inner peace thereby. Besides, jails are full of violent criminals tattooed with all kinds of religious symbols who swear they are whatever religion. And, of course, the greatest brutalities in the world have been perpetrated by religions for centuries (including human sacrifice, torture during the Inquisition, “holy wars,” and other events too numerous to mention that are going on right now).

Enlightenment requires deep, inner mining of our Souls. It is arriving at our own world view based on inner experience and contemplation. It is the stilling of the ego-mind and allowing other faculties to come forward, which bring an underlying peace, regardless of outer circumstances. Whether we belong to some group or another, has nothing to do with enlightenment. It has nothing to do with being a good person. For if we are good only because we fear the wrath of God, we are just covering all our bases out of fear. Living a fearful life and worrying about the future is not enlightenment.

Does stoicism have a cosmology and views of a soul or life beyond the human experience, or is it more so a philosophy of how to effectively live life?

10/18/2021

For the most part, people think of Stoicism as an extremely practical way of living. It is about accepting what we cannot change. It is also about living life to the fullest because we never know when it’s going to be our last day.
But the Stoics also had a cosmology and a concept of the soul.

They believed in what in Hinduism is called Prana—the breath of life. But they called it the pneuma The pneuma a mixture of the elements air and fire.

This pneuma is the creative force behind the all life, all inanimate objects, and the cosmos as a whole. The highest form of the pneuma is our soul, which they called the “psyche.”
The psyche is a a small part of the overall pneuma, which is the soul of God. Everything that exists is part of the pneuma in some way. Stoics divide it all into two categories:

Passive—matter and the material world, including us and our bodies

Active—divine purpose, or the “logos”

The Stoics saw the cosmos as an all-encompassing presence, with a mega-soul. This is where the god Zeus come into play. He’s the one that holds it all together with the power of the pneuma. And everything in the world is imbued with the pneuma.

I am completely in agreement with this view of the cosmos, minus Zeus. But I understand the need for humans to embody the forces of the Universe, and put a label on them, such as “Zeus” or “God.”

Is the noble eightfold path of Buddhism intelligible?

6/23/2021

Like the Ten Commandments, Buddha’s Nobel Eightfold Path, is simple to understand but not really easy to accomplish. These eight attitudes are not moral precepts about specifically what not to do, though. They are a simple list of how to behave if you want to live a life with a minimum of suffering for yourself and others.

Buddha does use the word “right” but it is not in the sense that you are damned by God if you don’t take his recommendations. It is more in the sense of what is most appropriate for the moment. Here is the Noble Eighfold Path:

Right understanding
Right thought
Right speech
Right action
Right livelihood
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration

Because they are so simple, people can interpret these concepts in different ways. Huge volumes have been written on the subject. My interpretation, in short, is approach everything with a free, pure, unattached heart. This ensures that we say the appropriate words as well as perform appropriate actions. We consciously put our efforts towards meaningful goals while remaining grounded in what is eternal about ourselves.

Four of the ideas in The Noble Eightfold Path concern themselves with our inner selves: Understanding, thought, mindfulness, and concentration. This is different from the Ten Commandments, which do not concern themselves with a person’s inner life and more with their relationship to Jehovah and with each other.

Four of the items on the Path are action-oriented: Speech, action, livelihood, and effort. The Buddha did not leave anything out. And by not defining precisely what each “right” thought or action is, he left a lot of room for interpretation. But the final test is, by living this way do you alleviate suffering? Thousands of years after he delivered his insights, they are still alive and bringing people and understanding of life, so they have stood the test of time.

Is the pursuit of enlightenment less of a thing for women?

1/25/2021

Enlightenment has been the center of my life since I was a small child. And I am a woman. At a young age, I also became aware that some religions don’t believe that women can achieve enlightenment or even be allowed into sections of an all-male heaven. I was perplexed.

Are you going to tell me that I won’t be allowed into the boys club of enlightened beings because I have been blessed with certain physical attributes or a certain distribution of hormones in my system?

Whether we have testosterone running through our veins or estrogen has nothing whatsoever to do with our Soul’s path. Those things belong to the body and determine whether we are male or female strictly for reproductive purposes.

From an enlightened point of view, we are not our bodies. They are the vehicles through which our Souls experience physical existence as part of their karmic journeys. It’s absurd to think that a male, regardless of how he behaved in this life, has a better chance of going to heaven than a female who has led a life of caring and spiritual pursuits.

One example is Digambar Jains. I am generally a big fan of Jains except on this one point. They believe that women are not capable of being enlightened. Svetambar Jains have opposite beliefs, believing that women are capable of enlightened and can become religious role models. But women, especially among Svetambar Jains, are believed to be deceitful. They believe that deceit is the foundation of their character. The reason they were reborn as a woman is because they were deceitful in a former life.

One of their sacred texts states:

“As the result of manifesting deception, a man in this world becomes a woman. As a woman, if her heart is pure, she becomes a man in this world.”

And men aren’t deceitful? That is my question. What does gender have to do with it? According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 93.% of the population in prisons are males and 6.7% are females. Is it not deceit to steal peoples lives through murder, theft, racketeering, con artistry, and other crimes? So please don’t tell me how holy the male population is, based on their criminal behavior.

According to a study entitled: Women in the Afterlife: The Islamic View as Seen from Quran and Tradition by Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad:

“The most basic relationship in Islamic society is not between a man and a woman but between a man and God: It is definitely not between woman and God.

. . .men, have, upon occasion, apparently used the assurance of their own place in eternity as a tool of control and of dominance.”
Yet other religious systems based on the Goddess, instead of a patriarchal punitive God, have deemed women as the leaders in enlightenment.

Heaven, (which I have experienced as enlightenment here on earth) is not a physical place of luxury where women take a subservient role as they wait upon men. This is fun fantasy for the male ego. This fairytale is not based on spirituality or any of my own deeply-held experiences of enlightenment. It looks like a pride-based and greedy imaginary man-made creation, based on physical dominance, very similar to life on earth.

What does it mean to find your “inner truth”, and have you found yours?

12/22/2020

So much of what we think is the truth is just received knowledge that we assimilated when we were too young to resist. We wanted to fit in when we were children. We wanted our parents to love us and to care for us. Therefore, it would not have been in our best interest to buck the system, even if we were capable of resisting.

Then we went to school. We had to learn what the teachers in our culture were teaching. It was considered to be the truth at the time, until we find out that history can be re-written according to cultural biases.

Our religious institutions also have their input into our view of truth. They frighten us with versions of hell at ages when, again, we are too young to resist and are not capable of intellectual argumentation. We are punished if we do not agree and it is much easier just to fit and and not make waves.
And so, most people never get to find their “inner truth.” To do that, we must scrub our consciousness clean of all received views and notions and find out what is so jut for ourselves. This requires going in within and learning about who we really are as Eternal Soul. It is a quiet place, away from all information input and entertainment. It is a place of peace, where you fearlessly discover what you love and what brings the most joy.

Yes, I have found inner truth for me, and it is a place of endless freedom. Most people don’t take the time to discover who they are. It’s much easier to accept outer truth. But, as we have seen through time, what we thought was true (such as the flat earth or that the earth is the center of the universe) is false. Inner truth is never false, because it is based on Soul, which can’t be incorrect.

Does Eckhart Tolle believe in God?

7/20/2020

If you are talking about the patriarchal Old Man in the Sky, who watches every move you make and punishes and rewards accordingly, then, no Eckhart Tolle does not believe in God. This is a primitive God, created in the image of a vindictive, capricious, and unjust man by men who were trying to put a face on the forces of nature. This is a God that has been constructed through fear and the desire to find safety in exchange for rituals and obedience.

Eckart Tolle does not believe in a God that created us from the “dust of the ground,” the way a potter forms a clay pot. Rather, we have emerged from the Creative Forces of the Universe. We are the natural outcropping of many physical and spiritual interactions and were not put here by some man-like God who then tasks us with proving that we are worthy of being alive.

Furthermore, Tolle does not believe in the hellish aftermath of life that is imposed by a punitive God who has watched us floundering around as we attempt to keep His commandments. Tolle doesn’t even come from “belief” for belief means we really don’t know but would like to think it is true. Like a child believes in Santa Claus. Rather, Eckhart Tolle comes from a sense of knowing. This knowing is based on his own experiences and not on some fairy tale made up by our forefathers a long, long time ago.

Is philosophy simply the appreciation of wise thoughts?

12/16/2019

Yes. Philosophy, when taken down to its Greek roots, means “love of wisdom.” Love and appreciation are closely tied to each other. But philosophy is more than just love of wise thoughts and wisdom. It is the analysis of answers to the basic questions of life:

Who are we?
Why are we here?
What is the purpose of life?
What is good and evil?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Is our universe real?
Do we have free will?
Does God exist?
Is there life after death?
Can you really experience anything objectively?
What is the best moral system?

These are just a few of the questions philosophers have been asking since people first began to think and record their musings. They are also questions that cannot be answered easily. Religions of the world have claimed they have the right answers. But philosophers always hold an open mind that their answers are only possibilities. They will continue. loving to ask these questions because the answers provide the wisdom by which we can live happy and fulfilled lives.

How are mentally challenged people connected with the soul?

12/16/2019

The mind and soul are two different entities. Some mentally challenged people express spiritual and loving qualities because they allow their souls to shine through. Our clever minds can often be an impediment to these beautiful qualities. We are constantly judging, comparing, seeing what is wrong, being unhappy because reality doesn’t match up to the ideal we hold in our heads. And we must be right about it all.

Mentally challenged people are not so heavily invested in their minds and therefore they can be freer and more in touch with their inner selves.

I have personally known people with Downs syndrome and other learning disabilities who have shown wisdom, tolerance, and a love of life that far more educated people were never able to attain.

Several years ago I had a personal trainer who had Downs syndrome. He understood the human body with intuitive acuity and communicated it well in his own way. I learned a great deal from him and his sage-like approach to strength and skill. He was patient and kind and I will never forget him. The strength of his soul far outshone the limitations of his physical brain.

It is a big mistake to think that intellectual giftedness and the Soul are interrelated. Again, the intellect has very little to to with the soul and can often block its manifestation in our lives. The mind is a very good analytical tool but the soul come from a different area, more like from a combination of the heart and the gut. Therefore, if a person is mentally challenged, he or she may be more receptive to the qualities of Soul and be more tuned into the pulse of the Universe than those of us who think we are our minds.

What is the meaning of life?

12/9/2019

Asking, “What is the meaning of life?” is like asking what is the meaning of a flower. You can say that the meaning of a flower is its function—to attract insects to propagate the plant and to produce seeds and fruit. But this is not the meaning, it is its utility and purpose on a very practical level.

A flower is much more beautiful than the function it performs actually requires it to be. Merely attracting bugs and spreading its seed doesn’t require roses to display the richness and variety of colors and fragrances it produces. So if life had meaning, it wouldn’t need to go overboard with so much beauty, it’s simply enough for everything to serve its purpose in one big biological dance of birth, reproduction, and death.

Life is in and of itself. The human mind assigns whatever meaning makes sense to it at the time. Some people don’t even think about it, they just go through every day on the level of the insects: Running around, feeding and expelling food, driven by instincts they never examine or question,. Other people put a religious spin on the meaning of life. God has set out a path for our estrangement and reunion with Him and that is enough for them to know.

Some people think that because there is no meaning it’s all a big, horrible joke, that inevitably ends in disease and death. This is because the human mind demands a story. It wants a neat little beginning , middle, and end. It must assign a purpose to everything so it can feel in control of something that is way beyond its grasp. But to know that life just is, is very freeing. We can sit back and admire its beauty, ingenuity, and perfection without demanding that it stands for something else.

What ways does New Age philosophy promote narcissism (aside from teaching we are god, create our reality & victim blaming)?

12/1/2019

New Age philosophy does not promote narcissism but narcissists can use New Age philosophy to promote their own agendas. Then again, narcissists can use any philosophy to get what they want out of others. And what narcissists want is adulation, praise, and validation from strangers to create a sense of self that continues to elude them.

We really can’t blame New Age philosophy for what people have interpreted it to be. In essence, New Age philosophy is innocent. It looks forward to a “New Age” of love and light through personal transformation and healing. There is nothing narcissistic about that.

Here is where the problem comes in: The New Age Movement encourages self love. As RuPaul says, “If you can’t love yourself, how are you gonna love anyone else?” There is so much truth in this. Taken the way it’s intended, it means we have to care enough about developing our own inner light before we are even capable of seeing it in another.

Loving yourself can be misinterpreted to mean a puffed up, conceited over-evaluation of your gifts and abilities. Or it can mean grab everything for yourself in a never-ending quest for more, more, and more. But this has never been stated as an aim of the New Age movement. Loving yourself is deep, respectful humility in your recognition of the magnificent Universe of which you partake. It has nothing to do with petty egos bolstering themselves with magical thinking.

If people have cheapened the New Age movement by using it for their own ego gratification, it is nothing new. All the spiritual movements of this planet have been corrupted through egotistical human interpretation. The golden embroidery on velvet priestly vestments is very different from the unadorned robe and sandals Jesus wore in the desert. Charismatic, egotistical, and narcissistic individuals will use any belief system for their personal advancement. The New Age Movement is no exception.