Spirituality for atheists

Don't worry, be happy. Sound advice, perhaps the best you will get. There's more to it of course, but you aren't likely to get there on generic atheist fare.

In fact most people don't ever realize there is any kind of spirituality that can be had without subscribing to any kind of religious or mystical doctrine.  Not only is there a spirituality beyond belief-systems, but it is a necessary part of healthy human development.

A responsible person makes sure they develop physically, both through healthy eating and exercize, and that they develop intellectually in knowledge, creativity and intelligence.  But there is another kind of development generally overlooked by most non-religious systems of thought. This type of progress is usually considered spiritual progress or the attainment of wisdom.

Wisdom is different than understanding and it is different than knowledge. Developing wisdom is learning to make the best choices not the most correct choices but those that will lead to one's personal success. Learning to act in a way that is at peace with one's surroundings is learning to act wisely. Finding happiness and success in the face of obstacles is to be truly wise.

The only way to have a complete and fulfilling life regardless of any professed or unprofessed belief is to actively nourish and pursue wisdom. 

This is the fundamental cornerstone of any spiritual existence and it transcends any belief system.

Recognize that there is a third pedestal of human development and begin to reach for new heights of humanity.

fast earth

A canyon formed over three days: http://futurity.org/earth-environment/megaflood-forms-canyon-in-3-days/

In the summer of 2002, a week of heavy rains in Central Texas caused Canyon Lake to flood over its spillway and down the Guadalupe River Valley. The waters excavated a 2.2-kilometer-long, 7-meter-deep canyon in the bedrock in just three days, new analysis shows. The finding, says Caltech geologist Michael Lamb, offers useful insight into ancient megafloods, both on Earth and on Mars, and the deep canyons they left behind.

The traditional view of deep river canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, is that they are carved slowly over periods of millions of years. The researchers argue that the rate of erosion in the 2002 flood was rapid because the flood was able to pop out and cart away massive boulders (a process called “plucking”)—producing several 10- to 12-meter-high waterfalls. [Via AllTop]

That's interesting. Seems to imply some of the geological phenomenon that would seem to take eons could happen in a timeline of weeks or months.

Maybe you don't have to be a creationist to believe the world was created in less than billions of years.

toe of God nonsense

An article about the potential Five Faces of Higgs Boson ?

Is it just me or is everyone else convinced Particle Physics today looks like Pre-Keppler Astronomy with all of their Epicycles?

I just had to point that out. Who wants to hazard a guess that whatever system they come up with that replaces the Standard Model will be much closer to something that sounds like what Kabbalah describes on the very basic levels?

Everything Science discusses may be referring to the level of Asiyah [the world of Action] and no higher. [Or it's equally possible we touching on the extremities of the worlds of Yetzirah [Formation] and perhaps even Beriyah.[Creation]]

archives of a past age

Everything posted before this post is an archive of a yahoo group I ran almost 10 years ago called "Science through Kabbalah."

Re: Sickness

 1) Well, first off we know that the shechina dwells above the bed of a sick person. And we know that the schechina dwells in a room with a minyan. 

You could draw some interesting, and perhaps misleading or perhaps not, conclusions from this.


2) about permanent illness or injury, i have the following insights: 
A Woman has fewer obligations than a Man. This is because the Man has more (naturally) un-fulfilled spiritual 'inputs'/'needs' than a Woman. (In other words a Man is less complete)
Now, a deaf person or a blind person has fewer requirements still than a person who can see or hear. Following this reasoning, they have still fewer spiritual needs and so need fewer mitzwoth to address those needs.
As far as I see it, a permanent injury/sickness/defect fulfills the need related to the mitzwoth the injured person is no longer responsible to perform.

3) taking points 1 and 2 together above, perhaps even temporary illness completes (for a time) a person in ways such that debillitate them (in the physical sense). This lack of spiritual need that is produced by illness is perhaps what raises the spiritual level of the one who is ill. This raising occurrs to such an extent that the shechina itself is present during great illness. The person who is ill has risen to a spiritual level comparable to the combined spiritual nature of 10 healthy Jewish Men.

---
This logic might seem very convoluted and backwards.. but it sometimes helps to view everything we think we know about the world (ie. illness is bad, physical power is desirable.) on its head. (illness brings one closer to God, physical weakness may denote spiritual strength)
[and of course: ilness may bring one closer to God in that when one is sick.. the whole world seems to shrink to that of oneself.. giving one a new perception of 'one-ness' otherwise only achievable as a baby or a greatly aged person. And spiritual strength (though initially begotten of physical weakness) eventually leads to limitless physical strength (ie: yaacov moving the stone off the well, moshe awake for 120 days without sleeping or eating, eliyahu running for 40 days and 40 nights, also without sleeping or eating.)

Tue May 22, 2001 12:02 pm

points on the curve

 Re: POST Re: POST
here's a concept i've been working with and I feel the easiest way to explain it is via martial arts analogy: 

In martial arts they teach you excersizes called katas, and you practice these katas until you are reasonably profficient at one, and then they teach you the next kata. Ultimately the goal is not that you necesarily memorize the katas themselves, the goal is that your mind/body will at some point integrate the various katas into an overall scheme of motion, a fundamental understanding of physical interaction, a new awareness of your body. When you reach these plateaus, this is the actual martial art which you are accquiring.. 

Basically, the katas are points that your teacher draws for you. When you start to see enough of the points at the same time, you can begin to get a sense of the curve. When you intimately understand the curve(which contains all these points and an infinite number of additional points), you can flow along it, never having to make use of any specific move you practiced or that you were taught. you can invent new moves that fit along the curve without having to think about them. you 'understand' or even moreso, you 'know' the curve, the martial art.

Now, this metaphor is true for all forms of learning. One cannot teach the curve, one can only teach the points, the teacher can only hope that the student will be able to put the points together and glimpse the curve. This is undoubtedly Torah as well. 

This is what is meant in part by the fact that there is some Torah which you are not permitted to teach even to a single student. It is not only that it is not permitted, but rather that any points you might try to offer a student regarding these highly complicated curves would only throw the student off the track.

Now beyond Kabbalah, and beyond less esoteric levels of Torah, there is a singular, supernal curve. A level of enlightenment in which one perceives the will of HaShem and the flow of events. An overall image or knowledge of how and why things are as they are. Every level of Torah and every exclamation of Torah serve as points along this singular curve, and so all elements and levels of Torah are addressing the very same concepts and points. 

Now, exactly what levels of such a perception are attainable and what are beyond our means is a very pertinent question but it has been addressed repeatedly, even by Moshe in direct discussion with HaShem. It is clear that one can never see this curve or know this curve with perfect clarity.. the question is, can we teach ourselves to see some of it at least..? can we see how every part of torah is related to every other part? 

this is the part or aspect of Torah that captures my attention, and occupies my time.

Sun Dec 31, 2000 9:18 am

a little about gematria

The gematria equivalent of a word is arrived at by adding up the individual numerical values of the letters in the word.. 
aleph through teth = 1 through 9
yud through tzadi = 10 through 90
kuf through taf = 100 through 400
[ie. aleph = 1, beth = 2, gimel = 3, ... teth = 9]

so the word Av meaning father (or thick IIRC), spelled Aleph Beth would have a gematria of 3; Aleph(1) + Beth(2) = 3 

BUT: 
the point of gematria is not to translate or decode words or sentences, as much as it is to find the deeper meaning, ie. add to the existing meaning.. so meaning is not lost but rather added. For example: the phrase 'WaYichbos Avraham eth Hamoro' means : 'And abraham saddled his donkey', the rabbis further teach that since WaYichbos also means to 'overcome' or 'conquer', and Hamoro also means 'his matter/stuff'; that the phrase actually means that Abraham overcame his physicality. Now, if we look on the level of Gematriah we see that Homer or Hamor (heth mem resh (HMR)) has the gematria of 248 (heth = 8, mem = 40, resh = 200), this is the number of the positive mitzwoth (commandments) in the Torah.. so now we may see that 'And Abraham conquored his donkey' actually has a much deeper connotation: 'Abraham overcame his physicality through the practice of all 248 positive commandments.'

So it's more a question of the various levels of Torah you are trying to understand, not a matter of how much is being lost in translation.

of course there are always deeper levels, and those who see more clearly than oneself :) 

yitz..

Sun Dec 31, 2000 8:36 am