xim

[originally from my blog, thought you guys might like]

[...]I'm so sick of not being able to get to sleep. finally I got up and took two benedrils on top of the melatonin and finished off a hot bottle of wine from our broken freezer. Oh and I took two of my antidepressants, since I left them at home last week on my cruise. Then I went running in my underwear barefoot until it hurt so bad I wanted to bust guts. Now I'm writing to get it all out so that hopefully when Im through I will be so bitterly sick of thinking that I can stop.

I'm not trying to change anyones mind about anything, this is just me venting about some frustration I have in my life right now.

I had a long conversation today with [girlfreind] about spiritual things. My grandfather is a Southern Baptist minister, and my family would love to see me a baptised card carrying Christian. Alas, When I was 4 years old I became an Athiest. Even as a young child God was only fairy tale to me. I could never swallow any of what they had to say, not even in kindergarten. Now, maybe its teenage rebellion but I'm finding myself spending more and more time searching for spirituality. Maybe I feel an inferiority because I dont *own* any spirituality as if it were a possesion. Who knows? One problem, what the fuck is spirituality? It seems like I've looked everywhere, from Christianity to Buddhism, Universism, Satanism to Chaos Magick. Did I learn anything? Did I find out what the "spirit" is? No. Have I any clue what people mean by the word "soul"? Nope. What exactly are people talking about when they say "God"? I have no idea. But I have learned something. Nobody else really knows what they mean either, people just think they do. Everyone makes up their own definitions for these words. Each word is a complete abstraction with no meaning that exists outside of the individual persons mind. But people sure would like to beleive that whatever arbitrary meaning they assign to each of those words *is* the real meaning of the word.

I've been going to yoga, seems great for physical relaxation, and if what they say about how it stimulates the glands to level out your hormones is true, then its great for mood stablization too. But then he wants me coming to meditation sessions where we sing goofy songs and I start hearing people talking about "Vital Energy". Now I'm back up to my eyeballs in abstract words.

Now, after looking around, even if only for a few years, I feel like all religions are bullshit. Can you experience anything outside yourself? I think its impossible. The very phrase is meaningless. Just because you *feel* like you are outside of yourself or you *feel* "God" doesn't mean anything. When I got off the cruise ship onto land I could still *feel* the rocking of the boat, but I was on land. You are always in your own conciousness. You ARE your conciousness. Just because you talk yourself into beleiving that you have experienced something "other than yourself" doesn't make it so. So I guess its all about what abstract concepts you can convince yourself of and start building new abstractions on top of. There. I said it. What lies can you swallow to make life bearable. Man needs some make-beleive to fill the void in his mind left by the things he doesn't understand or doesn't want to accept. There are plenty of people in the world willing to feed you some makebeleive, always amply mixed in with some "advice" on how to live. If you want to use their makebeleive to fill in the holes in your head youd damned well better live the way they want you to. What a great way to control people. Thats what humans all want. Control. Everyone wants to be the alpha. Unfortunatly I am usually the omega. The last of the pecking order. Thats why I resent christianity. I was brought up pointed towards it. Christianity praises the meekness. "The meek shall inherit the earth" You know why the Devil was cast out of heaven? "Non servium" He told god, "I will not serve". God, the biggest alpha male of them all, said to the non-submitter: "if you wont serve, get the fuck out of my kingdom!" A religion to comfort the slaves. Well its survival of the strongest, there is no prosperity in submission. Funny how the leaders of the religions aren't that meek, or else they wouldnt be at the top of the power structure. Leaders are dominant by definition. Interesting... A bunch of dominant folk leading a movement that instills a supreme respect for sumbission in its followers. What an incredibly well thought out way to keep people where you want them.

Why do I pick on christianity so much? It's just another set of abstract ideas and rules. Just like those of any other religion. I honestly dont know why I am so bitter towards it specificly. Maybe because I am most familiar with it, and the effects it has on people.

I'm tired of looking for spirituality, and I'm finished. It has become such an ass backwards situation for me to be just using all of my strength trying to get a taste of something that, if it had any transcendant meaning whatsoever, should come to me naturally.

I'm going to meditation next week, and If I still feel this way, im gonna tell my dada that I appreciate what he and his organization have given me and maybe make a donation to them, but that no matter how hard I try to ignore it, the spirituality just makes me cringe and shut my mind off (maybe not in those words). As for the yoga, [girlfreind] asked me "If you can't accept anything spiritual why do you goto yoga?" I dont know. I still may go to my yoga, because it is still valuable for health, although as she also pointed out, even something as simple as massaging pressure points in your hand for a headache never works, so maybe every bit of it is made up crap, just like the spirituality. Im also going to have to change the context of my therapy from spiritual chat sessions about hinduism to talking about my REAL EARTHLY PROBLEMS.

But its an hour later now and Im feeling the tiredness so ill see what I can accomplish sleepwise. I actually feel a million times better now. I need to just start writing every time I feel shitty.

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If I could be anyone in the world I would be Britney Spears. Shes in so many commercials about pepsi... www.ximcity.com

irateplatypus

i haven't reached the same conclusions or struggled with the issue in the same way... but thanks for the heartfelt post. you seem very honest with yourself and that seems to be a lot farther along than a lot of people who claim to have all the answers.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

raeanna74

Maybe I'm just another hypocrite. I asked my Mom to watch our Daughter so I could go with hubby to his training session for work. (They were paying for his hotel so I could join in and have a little relaxation as well.) Well she pretty much said that if I brought my daughter (4yr old) to their children's programs this week that she'd keep her the last 2 nights of the program, freeing me up for going with hubby. This means that I'm going with her the first two nights. It was annoying. I was looking at this "preaching" now from a different perspective. I grew up indoctrinated in it. Now I'm hearing it with much scepticism.

In the Bible, Christ teaches compassion and tolerance of other races - the woman who was giving the program for the children was talking about loving others. First she talked about loving God - fine I've heard it and it agrees with the Bible. Then she talked about loving other Christians - same. Then she talked about loving our enemies and then she said "who are our enemies?". I couldn't believe the answer she was telling these kids. It was "Anyone who is not a Christian." Ok this sounds like the middle eastern extremism of declaring a holy war in a sense. They aren't my specific religion sooooo - they are my enemies. What the! I was pissed.

So I'm stupid - I admit it. I went back the next night. I hear her talking about something else. She basically insinuated that if the a man in her Bible story hadn't given away all his money (she said he gave it to Christ but in the Bible he gave it to the poor) he would not be able to live in heaven eternally. Then she went on to talk about giving her tithe in church and how that's a commandment of God's. I know here that the 10 commandments say nothing about giving your money to the church.

I find it hard not to believe in a supreme being. The world around me appears too organized not to have an intelligent creator, in my opinion. But this kind of crap makes me distrust any organized religion. But that means I'm on my own to discover what I believe is true and what isn't in the spiritual, incorporial realm. That's a scary thought. BUT it's not as scary as being a sheep led around by the manipulation I'm just now beginning to see in the past 3 years. I'm sure there was a pure set of beliefs at some point but it's been so twisted and manipulated I fear I cannot trust any of it now.

__________________
"Always learn the rules so that you can break them properly." Dalai Lama
My Karma just ran over your Dogma.

Zdragva

yeah, im vary wary of any religions that offer anything except a place to contemplate tbh. all you can tell ur child is that God, if God exists, wants the best for each and all of us and that although we may do it in different ways, we all try behave how God would like us too. the thing about looking for a religion is that imo untill you find God youll keep looking :P i know that sounds crap but what i mean is that buddhism, christianity and judiasm etc. all have there icons of god that can be worshipped and yes to those sceptical it looks archaic and it looks stupid. the way i approach things like this is any place of worship is a monument erected by man to God whoever he may be and any religious place is a holy place, it doesnt matter if ur Jewish you should be able to attend a christian church and join christians in the praise of the creator, at the end of the day every single religion DOES worship the same thing, just they go about it differnetly but they all offer thanxks to whoever or whatever brought about the possibility we might live, i guess thats what you will find repeated most in holy books and its what i believe, we should thank the architect of our existance. All religions especially and mankind in general has only had our current period of fairly unclouded viewpoints for less than 100 years, we need to remember that the church wont throw away everything it has been about for 2000 years, and this may be its downfall as an organisation, but imo all religious things like that should be are groups that can organise spiritual or religious gatherings and not demand you go thru rituals or whatever. what you need to remember is that if God exists he will know u whether or not you go to church, and i doubt that a God who created this Universe will care tbh go find what u look for if you can, if u dont find anything that satisfies you thats unfortuante but its by no means wrong, and if u find a place for god in ur life then you arnt a prehistoric or backwards person at all, i still maintain that tho the bible isnt accurate that hardly is a reason for mankind to give up 1000's of years of belief just to look hip and trendy in the modern world. Think how many ppl have existed ever, and think what % of those ppl believed in a God, mankinds relationship with God is striking, even if we dont believe in him anymore.

wilbjammin

My problem with Christianity has always been when those who are Christians treat me like I'm broken are incapable of making a good decision on my own without Jesus in my life. All that stuff about love and acceptance didn't seem to make up for the fact that I was an unrepetant sinner going to hell.

Well, that was the main problem. The other problem is that I don't believe in God. I see no reason to believe in God. Since reaching some paradoxical problems about the idea of God and accepting that God was absurd concept and bared no relation to my actual human experience, I feel that I actual start being "spiritual". Finding meaning in life on my own without accepting any other structure as an ultimate authority has put me in a position to value things in a way that I don't think I ever could while trying to believe in something that I couldn't believe in.

I don't find it helpful to be angry anymore... once you realize that there's nothing wrong with living in the absense of God, and understand that other people aren't going to get it and that is not a reflection of you, you can be at ease with yourself. It is ok.

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Innominate.