Cool, looking forward to your post(s)

My pleasure.

I know you already said you cant prove it, so what makes you think different realms exist?


Is morality a spiritual thing? I guess most would say yes. First prove to me that morality is anything other than a made up human concept.


Obviously you disagree, but its true nontheless.

Disclaimer: this stuff is incredibly hard to write about, and i anticipate chaos, but i'm going to attempt it.

1. A spiritual truth I would define as an insight into the spiritual nature/condition of man. Such truths, in my opinion, are hidden from us in our default factory setting and must be revealed through one process or another. The word "spiritual" and "spirit" are not easily defined either, but in my mind relate to two things:

A: The "Holy Spirit", a divine essence that is either dormant and becomes awakened, or is absent and becomes present, in a person who comes to "know god". I do not believe the christian path is the only path to attain this, it is just the path i associate with and borrow the terminology from for the ease of communication. the tao is not the tao and the map is not the territory etc.

B: The deeper and truer nature of man's "soul", which is intricately interwoven with the above (in a spiritually awakened person), and with aspects of mind, psyche, identity, personality etc. (in everyone) As far as I can see it's a tangled inter-dependant web that cannot be unpicked, and therefore is either impossible or very hard to define. In most literature this element of man is described as being in constant turmoil with the base, pleasure-seeking/sensual and more animal element of man, in all but the most enlightened folk, and even then only after a long journey. To take the human form, warts n all, and turn it into something holy is to take the base metal and turn it into gold, and is essentially the goal of all mystics across all traditions, as far as I can gather.

2. i. studying spiritual texts, scripture and inspired works
ii. praying
iii. meditating
iv. being mindful in the normal, day-to-day course of things, and cultivating a peaceful inner space
v. Reflection and introspection
vi. Admiring natural beauty (as in the case of mystics who suddenly receive epiphany whilst bleary-eyed at the beauty of a waterfall, or etc.)
vii. The "mystical experience", which will probably occur only after a seeker has seriously engaged with the above to some extent, and can involve revelation in the form of epiphany, visions, dreams, altered states leading to higher awareness/perception of reality etc.

3. The tao is not the tao. everything an individual associates with himself is not real, including his name. it is a set of attachments that he has erroneously chosen to focus on to the extent that he believes they are him, and him they. in an awakened or enlightened state a person doesn't just realise this, they become one with this truth, and live it. these attachments, legions of them to which you have no idea the full extent until they leave, fall away and dissolve completely and something else is experienced in their place. this something else is a spiritual truth.

4. No. It must be experienced directly, by you, for you to "know". Beyond that, it is not testable and never will be. Its test is the fruit that the tree bears, the man who quits his city job to become an aid worker, and ten years later is still aid-working. this is about the height of proof you will get from a spiritual experience, the affect it has on a person and what they do with their life as a result. Spiritual love is another spiritual truth, and it is this love which moves people who have experienced it to do good toward their fellow man. You can talk about it in christian terms, hindu terms, or whatever terms you like, so long as you know about the it, and not just the words that have sprung up around it down the centuries in order that it may be disseminated as a concept from person to person in the form of religious teaching.

Because the tao is not the tao.

I would say that spirituality is a useless word now, it has too many connotations and concepts attached to it . But "real" (lol) spirituality is no different from science, in that it is an investigation of reality. . Spirituality is about looking with honesty at how things really work. And so is science, so thats why I think the are the same thing basically.

So a spiritual investigation of the spiritual truth I stated in (3) would involve looking at reality, and noticing how things really happen. But rather than using instruments, or deductive reasoning and thought, you use your 6 senses ( sound, sight, touch, smell, hearing, and "thought stream"( but not necessarily the contents of the thought stream, rather the thoughts as "objects") to investigate reality.

To answer your question I'll first define what spiritual means:

Spiritual is a plain of existence that is higher than the physical realm we can touch and feel. So therefore a spiritual truth is those things that are true to this realm of existence.

Spiritual truths can be accessed through studying the physical world because everything that exists in the spiritual realm manifests itself in the physical realm through one way or another you just have to know what you are looking for. I have also learned a lot through reading spiritual writings, videos or other forms of communication. Personally I focus on Christian works because I am a Christian.

One thing you'll find though if you go into researching this stuff is that a lot of stuff contradicts itself, other spiritual writings, or what actually happens in the natural world. So of course you'll have to be wary when looking into that stuff.

Everything is an example because everything that is physical is here because of spiritual causes. They can be causing positive things in our lives to happen or negative depending on what the will of the Spiritual entities are for the physical object. I could give you specifics, but I don't really see the point.

Most certainly, but that does not mean you will be successful if you are trying to study the spiritual realm through that tactic. Everything spiritual has a mind and a purpose which often are in opposition to what our objectives are. So when we try to force a spirit to say heal a person's broken leg, you may or may not be successful.

The word pipe isn't the pipe?

It is probably intended as a defense of dualism (or realism, though I doubt this in your case)... but if you consider it, it is actually the opposite. It is the complete and utter negation of dualism.

By voiding symbols as not connected to the truth, you are admitting that truth is not attainable... not that the truth is separate.

Truth is non-dual.

...not attainable by certain means, yes. (The main one: constructing, and then believing in, a proper alignment of symbols, thoughts, concepts, ideas, etc)

Not by any means. Any representation of information is symbolic, and nothing indicates a thought is otherwise.

It is eloquently represented in your claim "the word pipe is not a pipe"... which ofcourse is paradoxal, because the word pipe can't be anything but a pipe (because pipe is the word).

Truth is not information. Are you information? How would I know you?

The letters P-I-P-E, when in sequence, form what we call a "word". That word is a symbol representing an object used to smoke tobacco. Words help us communicate.

A "tree" is what it is. It was always what it was long before there was a word to describe it.

You don't seem to quite grasp this. You said:

Do you see what you did? You are claiming "pipe" is only a word... thus it is not... erm... only a word? You can't on on hand claim a word can't convey a concept, and then in the the next sentence convey the concept with that very word.

It only conveys the concept because you have been taught the concept. Other than that, its just patterns on a screen.

There is no intrinsic concept attached to that particular pattern

Sigh. I see what you mean now. I wrote that sentence poorly yesterday (the word pipe isn't the pipe). My apologies. The point is:

The name of a thing is not the thing.

Language is a social construct that helps us communicate. What have we gained by pointing this out?

The name of a thing is not the thing.

Most people would probably agree with the above, but why does that matter?

.

It helps us to distinguish between reality and fiction.

how then is truth attained?

fair enough.

This is a dualistic perspective, which is problematic because you are assuming some "truth" you do not know if exists.

Truth should therefore be found in the observable and measurable, and tested in the predictable.

Yes, truth is to be found empirically. What is the context of our empiricism? Immediate and alive experience (qualia). That's where we can compare whether for example the word "red" and IIIIIIIIIIII resemble each other.

Symbols are what you make them to be, a brain is easily capable of translating two different symbols it into the same experience.

Your sarcasm (if that is what it is) is thus ignorant rather than profound.

Wait what? what sarcasm?

How?

eta: I typed this on the phone I am holding. I am well aware that the word 'phone' is not the object I am actually holding.

Now, what if I actually used my laptop rather than my phone. Again, I am well aware that the words for the objects are not the actual objects (in fact it is a trivial point). But, my prior statement was fiction. How is reality being distinguished from fiction?

What changed after there was a word "tree"?

To me the post sounded snarky, I might be mistaken - I am not an English-speaking native.

Experience IS representation, so this whole tangent seems rather pointless to me. Whether we use the word "red" and trigger vernicke's area which then sends signals to our prefrontal cortex, or we see some red color and trigger the visual cortex which then sends signals to our prefrontal cortex isn't really a big deal. That we trigger different areas of the brain can make cause slightly different experiences (and sometimes funny side-effects), but there are also similarities since our cognition ties these perceptions together.

Even the only way of describing this is via representation, and this representation can never be complete: This is elegantly and simply shown by picking up a piece of paper, write some symbols. Now try to add to this paper a list of all the symbols on the paper.... it is impossible to complete this task.