The Kundalini Process: A Christian Understanding |
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Mary Sue first of all, I am sorry to hear about your grief. if I understand you correctly, you experienced a sort of emotional disconnection or repression and when you let go, you experienced many distant memories and the next day your partner was better. Is that right? My understanding is that in a marriage we are sitting in 'one emotional boat' - we swim and sink together. Or in other words, our emotional auras are linked and we are feeling our partner s emotions, whether we like it or not. So, it is only natural that if one partner experience healing that it will be easier for the other partner to feel better as well. I find that these dynamics are much stronger when we are in the kundalini process. hope this helps Tara - find more help for kundalini problems on my website taraspringett.com/kundalini/kundalini-syndrome | ||||
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Good post, Stephen. Phil -- can we have a new thread for Stephen's post, please? Give it a title such as "Christian approaches to the divine." (Do not on any account use words such as e***********, n**-d******, or B********* R****** in the thread title. ) | ||||
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Lovely post Samson. | ||||
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If I were to start a new thread every time I had a new thought, your poor forum would be inundated. So we trundle on on the "Kundalini thread" talking about all kinds of things. But my thought was that I am not a fan of avoiding using certain words because they have baggage or people feel uncomfortable with them etc. There are even people in Eastern circles who won't use the "E word" because it has baggage or misconceptions. What are we, some generation of wimps who can't bear anything that might make us uncomfortable or push our buttons? So now the devil is a metaphor for your psychological stuff, God is a metaphor for feeling all connected and peaceful, hell is sort of like dukkha, penance is not having dessert one day a week, and angels are our projections of feeling awed or loved? Yawn. Bunch of weenies. :P | ||||
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When I use the sign, it means I'm being ironic! | ||||
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Tara, as Stephen noted, in part, "Awakening" and "Enlightenment" are not exclusively Buddhist terms. Among other usages, "Enlightenment" references a period in history (17th C. onward) when the power of reason asserted itself anew. Still, it is good to define how the terms are used in Buddhism, Christianity and even secular culture. They do designate different kinds of experiences. We might add "meditation" to the list, here, as the term is used differently in Christianity than in many Eastern disciplines. Your four-point summary above is quite concise and helps to illustrate the differences between the Buddhist and Christian views of creation (maybe more a Judeo-Christian concept). If karma determines the form of a creature, then everything -- including humans -- is primarily a karmaic entity with no substantial basis in reality. I can understand why that would be considered "illusion." My thoroughly Western/Christian mindset cannot understand how or why the objective nature of reality would be so thoroughly discounted as seems to be the case, here. (Science, it seems, would only be an unwitting participant in the dance of illusion.) Nor do I understand what love means if one does not take the existence of another to be substantially real. What God means in all of this is beyond me, God being another of those words that Christians lay claim to and which has a long history of meaning in the Judeo-Christian religion. Perhaps Buddhists should not use the term "God?" Some branches do not. Anyway . . . just a few thoughts. | ||||
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No, it's just that we long-time members have discussed these subjects over and over and over again. | ||||
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Stephen, what you describe here is what we might call the Christian version of "nonduality," which is a union between God and the human where self (the "I" or subjective aspect of our human consciousness) comes to rest in the divine within. What follows is a short segment from the re-write of God, Self and Ego that resonates with your sharing. It's from a section on contemplative prayer (Transforming Union), but would describe anyone who has gone deeply into the theotic process, including non-contemplatives. Note my use of "Ego," which is qualified in earlier chapters (intentional consciousness, and the experience of self we have during those times):
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Mary Sue wrote:
my advice for help may sound a little strange : There is a katholic Monk in Italy. His Name is Fra Elia , he has the Stigmata, suffering from them in every holy week, he is in very close connection with Padre Pio, Mother Mary and Jesus. They have told him that his place is not in a monastry, but in this world, and that his task is to help families. He is very simple minded, and has the ability of healing, simply by praying for the peoples. (I can witness this personally!) Maybe you do a Google for him ("Brother Elia" or "Fra Elia") and send him a letter, with a picture of your husband, and you) Hope i could help! | ||||
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Tarantella, thank you for sharing. A priest had also commented on how grief can open one to God & others. I still don't fully comphrehend all this. Your comments have given me a beginning. | ||||
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Hi Bliss in The Heart Thank you for picking up on this aspect. My husband and I feel disconnected from the Holy Trinity during this time. while my husband was not raised with a punishing God i sure was. God killed those who angered him. To be able to turn to God during these times would be a great healing. I'll look into liBrother Ea. Thanks again. | ||||
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Mary Sue, Sorry, not "liBrother Ea", but "Brother Elia" or "Fra Elia" . God is not punishing. God is all LOVE, all Understanding, all Forgiveness. Also Jesus is the nicest "person" you can imagine, believe me. He is all Love too, a Love to us till his death . I hate that when religions are working with any kinf of fear. "Be not afraid !!" This is what Jesus said again and again. Unfortunately even the early Christians worked with fear already, Paulus included. No Good! Already in the first decades after Jesus they worked with fear, instead of "love each other like i have loved you!" It is not God, but it is WE, who are leading a life of punishment. My indian guru those days always said: "Never forget one thing: "God is your friend, not your enemy! " | ||||
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Having said all that I can't help but thinking that if Christians speak of union with God or as Phil has put it 'seeing with God's eyes' that it is the same experience that Buddhist call 'experiencing your Buddha nature'. I don't know how many of you know Evelyn Underhill's analysis of the mystical experiences of Christian saints and some saints of other religions. It's extremely wordy and a pain to work through but after studying this book and comparing it to my own experiences I can only agree with her that these mystical states are pretty identical. She calls the final state the 'unitive way'. As I have said before, it is relatively 'easy' to get first glimpses of this union-with-God/Buddha-nature (after a decade of intense spiritual practice or so ) but in order to completely stabilise this experience we need the 'fuel' of awakened kundalini. So, kundalini is not enlightenment in itself but the energy that allows us to go from short glimpses to complete stabilisation. I think this also clarifies the argument whether you need kundalini to reach enlightenment. The answer is: for short glimpses - no, for stabilisation - yes. (oops - I used the word enlightenment again in a rather unspecific way ) Tara - find more help for kundalini problems on my website taraspringett.com/kundalini/kundalini-syndrome | ||||
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My question (perhaps already discussed at endless length in the past) is if "kundalini" is an Eastern term/concept, and yet many mystics in the West over the centuries (in Sufism, Christianity, etc) have "reached enlightenment" (not just had brief glimpses), there must be a terminology for talking about it in a western framework. Fire of the Holy Spirit, maybe, or some other terminology? Or it is not named as a "thing" but happens nonetheless. Does anyone know? | ||||
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