Spiritual Atheist Musings

[mhikl]

Hi to all,

I have been an atheist since about my second year of university and the moment hit me hard having been sent to church from an early age. My parents weren't so fastidious in their attendance leading me to suspect a greater need for weekend time off from six kids; a case of the Lord working in mysterious ways. The only thing I didn't like about church was that the nickel for the collection plate had to come out of my meagre weekly allowance. (In kid-speak, that was half a comic book.)

I learned to meditate around the age of 10 while reading The Third Eye by T (Tuesday) Lobsang Rampa, an Irish man hosting the spirit of a Tibetan Monk. TLR was my first spiritual leader and because of him, before falling asleep, I would practise astro-travelling to Mars and Pluto. Having little success I lowered my sights to the Moon hoping that shaving some distance from my travel plans might make my work a little easier. I was also worried about my spirit freezing on Pluto or cooking on Mars and I knew I could see my way back from the Moon. However, puberty waylaid my objectives in this form of meditation when another suddenly came to mind. *

Fast tracking to shortly after my emergence to atheism, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation Movement visited my part of the world and I learned how to practise meditation whilst sitting upright in a chair, which served me well until I attended a Buddhist based weekend retreat called The Sacred Path of the Warrior. (Sorry for the synopsis, but I have plans for the evening.)

Though an outspoken atheist, in the most gentle respect, I accept that I do have spiritual needs. I am a people person and can and do accost the breathing in waiting lines, at cross walks or anywhere I catch them lingering purposelessly. Most don't seem to mind.

So, I have proven the credulity of being a chatterer and having finished this epistle and read all the rules and regulations for this forum (very well written, I might add - Paragraphs as your best friend! totally agree- and I thought I was the only one with this weird idea, ha!) I shall continue my quest to find the craftily hidden group membership button so I can join the Canucks and blather away.

Namaste,
mhikl

* Fortunately, I didn't know the Irish or hosting connexions at the time- I was smart enough to have been at least a little miffed; and unfortunately, I was to find out too late that T Lobsang Rampa shared the same birthday as I and he lived only fifty kilometres from my home in Alberta. TLR's loss too. I would have biked the distance in the summer and thumbed a ride in the winter to mow his lawn and shovel his walks; he was that important to me. (The connectivity of all humans, even based upon chance, is thought for wonder.)

[Cego_Colher]

oh, hello and welcome, Mhikl.
a Buddhist I see, neat.

There is an awesome Buddhist monk teaching art history at my college this semester. I have Asian art and culture with him. not that it matters, just saying.

[tackattack]

Welcome to the forums

[KichigaiNeko]

Nameste mhikl!

Welcome to the forums.....

Nothing wrong with searching.....I understand where you are coming from, all the best

[fr0d0]

Great intro mhikl

[chasm]

Welcome to ze forums.

[HeyItsZeus]

HELLO!

[leo-rcc]

Hi and welcome to the forums.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Hi Mihiki won't welcome you yet due to the woo content of your posts;I'm hoping you're a Poe.

There is no evidence for existence of the spiritual.

There is no evidence of reincarnation, of any kind of survival after death, nor any evidence of any personality transferring into the body of another person.

The man calling himself Tuesday Lobsang Rampa (all of whose books I've read,beginning in 1963) was a fraud,with limited knowledge of Tibetian Buddhism. In real life Dr Rampa was an Englishman, Cyril Henry Hoskin,who died in 1981. Most tellingly, Cyril spoke no Tibetian.

The explorer and Tibetologist Heinrich Harrer was unconvinced about the book's origins and hired a private detective from Liverpool named Clifford Burgess to investigate Rampa. The findings of Burgess' investigation were published in the Daily Mail in February 1958. It was reported that the author of the book was a man named Cyril Henry Hoskin, who had been born in Plympton in Devon in 1910 and was the son of a plumber. Hoskin had never been to Tibet and spoke no Tibetan. In 1948, he had legally changed his name to Carl Kuon Suo before adopting the name Lobsang Rampa. An obituary of Fra Andrew Bertie, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, claims that he was involved in unmasking Lobsang Rampa as a West Country plumber.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobsang_Rampa

Paramahansa Yogananda was fascinating figure and either a gullible fool or a or charlatan. I'm pretty much convinced he was a harmless nutter after reading his amazing "Autobiography Of A Yogi" several times. The book makes some pretty startling claims but presents no evidence: EG the bi-location of his guru, Shi Yukteswar,swami Prabanana,"the saint with two bodies",Nagendra Nath Bhaduri."the levitating saint" and he also breathlessly recounts the story Therese Neuman, the Christian 'mysti'c and stigmatic who claimed to survive on communion wafers. It's woo.

PS: I also studied Kriya Yoga with a teacher,and can meditate in using Kriya or Hatha Yoga. Meditation is not evidence of the spiritual. The techniques I was taught can be learned in an hour.Then it's practice.

[mhikl]

Hi Mihiki won't welcome you yet due to the woo content of your posts;I'm hoping you're a Poe.

There is no evidence for existence of the spiritual.

There is no evidence of reincarnation, . . . etc.

The man calling himself Tuesday Lobsang Rampa (all of whose books I've read,beginning in 1963) was a fraud,. . . and more etc.

PS: I also studied Kriya Yoga with a teacher,and can meditate in using Kriya or Hatha Yoga. Meditation is not evidence of the spiritual. The techniques I was taught can be learned in an hour.Then it's practice.

Namaste padraic,

Nor sure what a woo is or a Poe?

True. I do my research and know all this. However, the Spiritual can be seen as the Wonder and that is how I like to look at the world and hope I never lose the sense of the Wonder or the Spiritual, however I wish to perceive it. And having had a Christian upbringing and having experienced faith, I know that it can bring a sense of wonder and support to the travails in one's journey. One can lose faith but one doesn't have to lose the sense of Wonder. Some do, I suppose, or they may never have had the Wonder to lose.

The experience of meditation is natural to many and I have seen people in a meditative state who didn't know that that was what they were in. I remember seeing a fellow in a long house in Sarawak lying next to a caged squirrel and just starring at it. He didn't move when called, he was so entranced. I think he was taking a Spiritual or Wonder moment after a long day's sojourn in the felled forest to plant paddy and it didn't seem to do him any harm.

As a teacher I teach my wards how to meditate and they come to request time before a recess or days end to relax in the state and I've met past students who continue to find moments for this form of awareness beyond the measurable.

M. TLR gave me a sense of wonderment when I was a child and for that I shall be ever thankful. That he was a crazy right-brained thinker, run amok with metaphor, fazes me not in the least. His heart was in the right place, he tried something that gave him more pleasure than hewing wood, and he created wonder for many young lads. Such is blessed, if I may use such a word on this forum.

I had an old adopted grandpa who would sit with me and show me how to put old clothes pegs back together for grandma or how to sharpen the blades to a push lawn mower, or how to hammer a nail into an old stump. Such were struggles for a small lad, but in moments we shared a meditative moment of wonder and I have never forgotten.

A metaphor. We can all define it but do we all experience it. For those who don't, the sense of the Spiritual or of the Wonder would be like noise in the wind and possibly disconcerting. My sister is such and can't tell one tune from another and gets no pleasure from music and I don't see any metaphor in that. And no manner or matter of practice is going to change it.