What is "spirituality"?

[Badrock]

Letting Go!

[Ghostly]

Getting to know that bit of you which is not your brain, not your body...not your behaviour patterns, not even your memories...
it's what's left when you strip all that away..."the other bit !"

[Ngangkari Jay]

Everything and Nothing!

James

[Ngangkari Jay]

Hello Xia, I just want to point out that the Shoalin Wahnam students have great respect for our Sifus (and students), we understand that they are our teachers and through personal experiences can help us to help ourselves to change what we need in our lives.

If I were to become a herbalist I would need a parent figure to show me the way of correct practice and discipline. On becoming a Herbalist I would then have the skills and knowledge to practice safely and pass on the skills and knowledge safely. Authors who write books also become parent figures as they pass on information in a written way, poets pass on knowledge and personal perspective through the expression of the word. I feel we are all parents and students at all times but in different ways it just depends on the moment!

A real teacher can come in many forms, an old lady can teach me something whilst I sit on the bus observing and listening, she may have something profound to say that could change my life in an instant, but she herself may not see herself as a spiritual teacher. In the Wahnam institute we understand by title who is who and what relation they are in the family and who would be the best person to communicate with and in what circumstances.

If I wanted to play a professional sport with bat and ball I wouldn’t walk into a professional Football club, I would opt for Cricket or Baseball, that because the rules of football don’t allow for a bat to be used and it would not suit my chosen path with the bat.

Of course everyone has an individual perspective and we honour yours, however our perspectives may differ in some ways. It’s great to share concepts and communicate, I personally enjoy the Shaolin Wahnam perspective because it suits me and through experience I know what is passed on is both powerful and genuine. The teachings are open to all regardless of culture, creed or religion.

Best wishes
James

Originally Posted by Xia

And yet, who breathed meaning in to all of those acts? Forme, I take utter responsibility for my world - even placing myself in the arms of my parents.




Equating parents with sifus, all though I see your point, is symptomatic of the problems at Wahnam. Parent may be a little like Sifus, I guess, but Sifus are not your parents.

Spiritual cultivation means nothing to me. I am a human being, and all my spirit is here, with me... I don't by the New Age crap that seeks to cure me of being human. My spirit grows naturally, as a natural result of accepting full and total responsibility for myself, my words and my life. If some people call that spirituality, that is fine by me - but for all the help I have ever recieved, I myself brought myself forth to it. So you wonder if I am ungrateful? No. The debt is paid back by helping others in my turn.



The heart of Tao is to understand that all of our meanings and all of our reality, including the meaning we apply to our parents, even ourselves, comes from us - from tao, from the nameless, the no-thing. Regardless of how we view it, the help is there either way... but for some, we accept full responsibility for taking the help.

Part of what is wrong here is that the virtue of gratitude to others has been twisted in to a false sense of being *given*, as if you should scratch the dirt for your own work and understanding. A real teacher encourages you to take responsibility for everythign that you have learned - for every piece of understanding that you struggled with and came to - because they know that that is the only real way to progress.




I am not ego bloated, I just take responsibility for my ego. There is a great difference, and when you see it, maybe you will not need a dream heaven any more.

X

[namaste]

Spirituality is often mistaken to mean religion.

My experience of spirituality is having an intermittent sense of 'self'; a self that I have not constructed; something that has been there since before I was born and has not been created by me in response to the world. It is my perception of my 'core self' which is also all of the cosmos. It is the journey that I feel I am on where I aim to exist in a state where I feel continuously connected to the cosmos and to my 'self' (or non-self) always, rather than the glimpses I experience periodically (usually when I am at extremes of happiness or sadness).

Love to all
Rich