Hi…..I have been involved in the Hare Krishna movement around 8 years ago, to quite a committed level. I was really drawn to this spiritual utopia, where everything would be cool & groovy….everything would be provided for by a Higher level etc.,…& seeing all these people living wonderful, happy ,carefree lives, travelling the world without any sort of income. That is the life for me! Although it doesn’t work like that. The miseries of everyday life do not just disappear….in fact they seem to intensify because you are following this straight path. I was FAR more happier when I drank, smoked, ate meat, went fishing, etc.,….but I guess I am afraid to go back to all that, in case that lifestyle goes all wrong!! And for the record, all the wondrous things  I was hoping for never happened!

I do relate to your suffering and disappointment with “spiritual” teachings. Still I re-challenge you to re-imagine your definition as to what spirituality means if only to let go of your anger.

I no longer equate spirituality with a ‘supernatural being out there’. If such beings exist there is little I can do about such matters and could not spiritually relate to them.

I agree that once one starts down the path of seeking god will lead to frustration and isolation. I to imagine a path where I might have been happier avoiding such a quest.  This I now know. There is no going back.  The questions will continue to haunt one until they push past them.  You may not want to hear this but there is a lot of evidence that the disillusionment and frustration is part of the path of the seeker.  It is during this time that the seeker confronts what they have been taught and their experiences. At this point some will reject it all while others learn to move past the words. Seeing past the words often means leaving the community which is painful but necessarily.

The problem with being a seeker is that we to often fail to notice when we found what we were looking for

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Peter.

We have a great deal in common. In my opinion the philosophical implication of the parable of the talents when taken literally are horrific. I can’t tell you the fear I felt as a child wondering if I was living up to my potential and hiding my ‘light’ and the punishment I would end up facing for my failures.  And that was before ever questioning why one person would be given more talents then another.

Like you I  attend church out of respect of my family. I no longer have the energy to ‘translate’ the teachings into spiritual language and separate the organisation from the goal.

I agree the words within the bible when viewed literally through the eyes of certainty strips spirituality from them.  That can change when one reads religious tests as poetry and symbolic language but one must be open to symbolic language. Symbolic language can be difficult because it is necessary to let go of certainty and become comfortable with the idea of doubt.

Within the organisation of Church doubt is something to be feared and symbolic language a danger in undermining the organisation. Thus in my view that mar many spiritual growth – the reported goal of the organisation – means that there will come a time where one must leave the organisation.

I was taking to someone the other day who mentioned they had lost their faith yet continued to pray which seems a contradiction. She went on to talk about how she found a different spiritual path.  I suspect that see never lost her faith but had lost her certainty in the words she was taught.   Her experience forced her to acknowledge doubt and that it was in doubt that her world view opened and where could ‘see’ her faith – Faith as in what she leaned on when she didn’t know, when she doubted. Doubted G_d, doubted life, doubted herself.

I know asking such questions will not make you happier. Ignorance is bliss and often its better not to ask the questions. If, however you are like me, once a question has been asked, it can’t be unasked and so you will find yourself continuing to seek out your truths. Like you I was angry abut that, but that’s like being angry that my eyes are brown a waist of energy.

You might find the work of Joseph Campbell helpful. Maybe ‘Myths we live by’. His study of symbolic language and the stories/myth/religions may help you reconcile your experience and anger.

I’m sorry to hear about your depression and hope you find a way to let go of the anger and disappointment your feeling.

My feeling is that as long as we continue to try to do better when we know better no lessons we learn from are wasted so no point beating ourselves up.  Its all just part of path that got us to where we are.

Though I have also left the Church, doing so has allowed me to know that the reality of every breath we take is a birth, betrayal, death and resurrection. Not a something that happens once at the end of life (or after life) but is every moment. I often wonder if Christ call to follow him was a call to make that truth conscious and being conscious able to say Yes to Life as it is, the good and the bad, and know that that is ok even ‘good’.  I found that when I can get there the tensions I feel about living by the rules, doing everything right, having the world work the way I want it to…. dissolves.

Anyway I wish you well and remember that religion and church are not the same as spiritually. Ending your connection to a church or creed does not end your connection to your spirit.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ― Joseph Campbell

If the world is awful, oh how much more brightly our light could shine.

So you want God to fix our all mistakes? You gonna do shit, have no responsibility for your own shit and expect Him to clean up your shit?? You want Him to come and take our suffering away, and because He is not doing it your way means He is no there? You want to punish God by turning away because he is not doing what you want. A little human being throwing tantrum. Look around, look at the universe how huge it is, we are smaller then a speck of dust and so arrogant. Only we are responsible for all the crap around. We have a choice to become a loving human being and do good, or become a hateful human being and do unkind. Do you grow in love or hate? Right now you expect external satisfaction and so it makes you mad, because external does not satisfy you, start radiating good outwards and stop expecting world to pamper you.

the Point is that I only change myself, we all only change ourselves. You are in rage, and okay, that is your choice, that is what you are feeling now, you also have a choice to feel differently, but okay, who am I to tell you this I am also just a little human being, you obviously know everything already, so why even come here, do you want all of us to follow you? What’s your point here? Do we need to validate you? Let’s all scream and be angry, let’s destroy Earth even more?! Lest scream “fuck you” to each other? Feels good?

we both speak from life experience, we both having it hard, I had an experience of love which i did not even know existed, and it is there, except when you are under the deep mud it’s almost impossible to experience that love, so yeah, it can feel like it is not there. Just because you can not see beyond horizon of the ocean does not mean that it stops there.

I will stop here, you are mad at good and at bad, at kind and at strikt, nothing will work, only you can pull yourself out, and if you don’t want, well then have a great time in darkness.

best