I don't want to cast dispersion against any religion, but do you think it gets in the way of spirituality? Do you think religion helps or hinders the average person on their quest for "god"?

It depends. Some people need guidlines to live by or they feel lost. Sometimes people might find that religion enhances their love for said deity. Other times I think religion can take away from a person by telling them exactly what to believe and how to think. Anyone can be spiritual, whether adding religion to that helps or hinders is really up to the person.

It is for the individual to decide, a personal journey, in the end. But, if other people are there to help you, guide you, show you the way and you have nothing to lose, then why not??? Since religions are alive and well, God must have willed them, no doubt. Who are we to say that a particular religion is right or wrong for another??? What a person does with his or her religion is definitely another matter, however. There will always be people who commit social errors within a specific path, method, technique, whatever one wants to call one's connection to God, Infinite, Energy, Void, Nirvana, Nothingness, Allah, and so on. I, on the other hand, focus in on those who are well adjusted, well rounded, interesting, creative, full of joy and positivity, earthlings -- all the "good" things about a HUMAN BEING. Let's be humans first. I could care less about people who only give lipservice. I want "good" results from the people I hang with. If a person doesn't want to deal with me in a grounded, earth-reality, "good neighbor" manner, then WHATEVER. The truth is: every moment of your life is a quest for God, whether you know that or not. And this world will always remind you that ABSOLUTE fact. I instinctively know: if one believes in one's path and follows it with an open heart, 300%, the rest will take care of itself. God connects to us constantly, especially through those we meet, read about, and so on. Yes, when you read a truly logical comment, and it hits you on the right spot, you know that God is telling you something, that you are on the right quest.

I am a spiritual person more than religious (not to say that I dont hold any religious beliefs); but I think religious *opinion* gets in the way sometimes when I discuss my beliefs with a commited religious follower.

Yes, I believe that it can get in the way. When form becomes more important than substance; when following the traditions laid down by the generations before, you tend to lose that spark of divinity, and the ritual becomes routine and rote, without the joyful expression of ones faith.

I was encouraged to join a church group many years ago by a friend who wanted to save me. Each and every member knew their bible back to front and inside out, they could quote scripture, sat exams to prove it, and argued for hours on end about the meaning of this chapter or that verse. Not one of them was spiritual. Them talking about God was like Data from Star Trek TNG playing the violin... technically perfect, but there was no feeling.

I have a personal relationship with my creator... I don't need a bunch of rules and guidelines.

In my view, anything that takes away freedom is not good. Some religions say "don't do this, don't do that or you will go to hell", people end up living in fear instead of love and limit what they will attempt to do.

I have seen people go to church every single Sunday morning, pray and ask for forgiveness then on the way home, kick the homeless sitting outside and spit on the stray cat (exaggerating but you get the gist lol).

I don't go to Church simply because I do not need a middle man relaying my messages, I'll do it myself thanks

Organized religion can and often does but universal religious truths which is another name for spiritual truths will only help you advance if you let them. Make sure you never become dogmatic and let your faith go with the flow.


In nature there is fundamental unity running through all the diversity we wee about us. Religions are given to mankind so as to accelerate the process of realisation of fundamental unity. ---Mahatma Gandhi.

It is said that when you take only one step toward Him, Hi advances ten steps toward you. But the complete truth is that God is always with you. --Muhammad

There are as many ways to God as there are created souls. ---Muhammad

Whoever knows himself knows God. --- Muhummad

All religions have common elements of truth in them. But strictly adhering to a religion's particular dogma and teachings can be a great impediment to spiritual progress. It can lead to guilt, fear, self-loathing and feeling totally unable to match up to God's 'harsh demands'. It can and does lead to conflict with others who do not share the same beliefs. Your own spirituality can only be developed through helping others and being modest about it. Saying hundreds of prayers every day, punishing yourself and being critical of others will only take you down and down.

Your view are similar to my own. Every religion has a central truth that is a blessed understanding. However I tend to think a religion's guidelines are a hindrence to a person's spiritual developement. One should never be afraid to think 'outside the box' and as I see it, there is the consistent theme in every religious structure to encourage you NOT to do this.

In oh so many ways, I am a christian without a religion. I suspect if I were exposed to non-christian principals I would also embrace many of them. I think there are core spiritual understands that are central to all structures of thinking and I do not think any of these structures accept the full range of perceptions. The one common theme reguarding love is usually presented with conditions. I do appreciate the law of cause and effect, however who can judge my or anyone's divinely enabled potentials.

BTW I forgot to welcome you to UM.

E N J O Y

If anyone did not see it before, you might like to read the speech by Jiddu Krishnamurti I posted at the beginning of this thread: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=88739

Hmmm, I guess I'm spiritual and religious and it's a lifestyle too.

I see all three working hand in hand. However, that being said, I was VERY careful to choose an organized religious sect that focused on the spirtual without dogma---although some claim we have our own type of dogma which comes in the form of our general lifestyle choices which we are very serious about.

Weird. I never really gave it much thought. Our very official name includes the word "religious." The Religious Society of Friends.

Huh. I should give that a little more thought and what it really means.

Truth is a Pathless Land
by J. Krishnamurti

What follows is the speech made by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1929 when he dissolved the Order of the Star. The Order of the Star was the organisation built around Krishnamurti by Theosophists who selected him at the age of 13 to be the vehicle for the return of the Christ, or Maitreya. He was raised accordingly, but after his enlightment, he refused the role that has been prepared for him, disbanded the organisation of which he was the head, and continued to teach on his own. His speech was made during the Dutch Camp of Ommen, in front of more than three thousand Star members, and with many thousands of Dutch people listening on the radio. Many of the concepts that are present in this speech are worth to be pondered upon in the light of almost 70 years of spiritual history.




We are going to discuss this morning the dissolution of the Order of the Star. Many will be delighted, and others will be rather sad. It is a question neither for rejoicing nor for sadness, because it is inevitable, as I am going to explain....

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organised; nor should any organisation be formed to lead or coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organise a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organise it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallised; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley....

So that is the first reason, from my point of view, why the Order of the Star should be dissolved. In spite of this, you will probably form other Orders, you will continue to belong to other organisations searching for Truth. I do not want to belong to any organisation of a spiritual kind; please understand this....

If an organisation be created for this purpose, it becomes a crutch, a weakness, a bondage, and must cripple the individual, and prevent him from growing, from establishing his uniqueness, which lies in the discovery for himself of that absolute, unconditioned Truth. So that is another reason why I have decided, as I happen to be the Head of the Order, to dissolve it.

This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies. Then you will naturally ask me why I go the world over, continually speaking. I will tell you for what reason I do this; not because I desire a following, not because I desire a special group of special disciples. (How men love to be different from their fellow-men, however ridiculous, absurd and trivial their distinctions, may be! I do not want to encourage that absurdity.) I have no disciples, no apostles, either on earth or in the realm of spirituality.

Nor is it the lure of money, nor the desire to live a comfortable life, which attracts me. If I wanted to lead a comfortable life I would not come to a Camp or live in a damp country! I am speaking frankly because I want this settled once and for all. I do not want these childish discussion year after year.

A newspaper reporter, who interviewed me, considered it a magnificent act to dissolve an organisation in which there were thousands and thousands of members. To him it was a great act because he said: "What will you do afterwards, how will you live? You will have no following, people will no longer listen to you." If there are only five people who will listen, who will live, who have their faces turned towards eternity, it will be sufficient. Of what use is it to have thousands who do not understand, who are fully embalmed in prejudice, who do not want the new, but would rather translate the new to suit their own sterile, stagnant selves?....

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole, not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is eternal, I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free, not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears - from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want any thing from anyone. You are accustomed to authority, or to the atmosphere of authority which you think will lead you to spirituality. You think and hope that another can, by his extraordinary powers - a miracle - transport you to this realm of eternal freedom which is Happiness. Your whole outlook on life is based on that authority.

You have listened to me for three years now, without any change taking place except in the few. Now analyse what I am saying, be critical, so that you may understand thoroughly, fundamentally....

For eighteen years you have been preparing for this event, for the Coming of the World Teacher. For eighteen years you have organised, you have looked for someone who would give a new delight to your hearts and minds, who would transform your whole life, who would give you a new understanding; for someone who would raise you to a new plane of life, who would give you new encouragement, who would set you free - and now look what is happening! Consider, reason with yourselves, and discover in what way that belief has made you different - not with the superficial difference of the wearing of a badge, which is trivial, absurd. In what manner has such a belief swept away all unessential things of life? That is the only way to judge: in what way are you freer, greater, more dangerous to every society which is based on the false and the unessential? In what way have the members of this organisation of the Star become different?....

You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else.... when I say look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organisation?....

No man from outside can make you free; nor can organised worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organisation, nor throwing yourselves into work, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an alter and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organisations become your chief concern. "How many members are there in it?" That is the first question I am asked by all newspaper reporters. "How many followers have you? By their number we shall judge whether what you say is true or false." I do not know how many there are. I am not concerned with that. If there were even one man who had been set free, that were enough....

Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity....

You have been accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible?....

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without a beginning and without an end, will walk together with greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that true friendship - which you do not seem to know - there will be real co-operation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice.

So those are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone - I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organisations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, norwith creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.


----Jiddu Krishnamurti



Sorry sworddancer but I thought it as best just to post it up

Aw BNW, ya know I like you.... but it would be nice to hear your own thoughts once in a while rather than long posts (which I never read) written by someone else. I like YOU and would rather hear YOUR thoughts. I can look up what other people said and thought on my own. (just like how I used the Bible which is a nice description of what other people thought and how they interpreted God's words.)

I love ya man, but you're killin' me here.

Huh?? Now I've been demoted to a sworddancer?? hehehe The swashbuckler kind or the knights of arabia kind? Just so's I know?? LOL

My own thoughts then......Ok I believe that genuine religion or spiritual religion is the greatest gift given to mankind. Because it is a tool we can use to expand our awareness of who we are and our relation to the universe and therefore giving us peace that comes from eternity itself. Only eternity can deliver us from the sufferings of time and religion is a means of accessing it.

Yea! see, I LIKE that!