Rituals Needed Today

Mareeka wrote: Absolutely agree with Campbell in terms of the loss of rituals. When the word ritual is thought of, there is usually an association with myths or religion. I do not believe that is what he meant. For example, does your family sit down together every day for dinner for the purpose of being together and communicating and supporting? Is there a child in your life (family or not) where time is spent routinely in a certain way (teaching, playing, etc.?) Beyond an altruistic act, there are repeats of practices (performed ritually . . . every thursday, every day . . etc.)

Another type of example of modern day ritual is the apprentice program right here.

I believe that rituals create community and communion, both in terms of your everyday life and spirituality / religion. As such, I consider rituals to be important. And I have to say, I sometimes miss the ritualistic side of the religion within Jediism. Beyond citing the Creed after sermons, I haven't been confronted with many rituals.

And I have to say, I sometimes miss the ritualistic side of the religion within Jediism. Beyond citing the Creed after sermons, I haven't been confronted with many rituals.

I don't know about anybody else, but I've created my own.

Edan wrote:

And I have to say, I sometimes miss the ritualistic side of the religion within Jediism. Beyond citing the Creed after sermons, I haven't been confronted with many rituals.

I don't know about anybody else, but I've created my own.

I've been working to create my own. It's also part of why I made those plaques the way that I did. I wanted to prep them in case they went to someone who wanted to make them apart of their rituals.

I believe that one (of so many) reasons the recent ruling by the US Supreme Court ending marriage bans for same-sex couples is as powerful and relevant as it is, is that it expresses a tacit affirmation of marriage's importance and status as one of the few meaningful, and publicly recognized rituals left in modern society today. Marriage is a ritual of commitment to a loving relationship - why else would people go to what some would consider the insane extremes that we do? Families with little money spending outrageous sums on the perfect dress, cake, etc. Even if the marriage is done in a more secular fashion, it serves the same purpose, and still includes many of the same ritual elements, regardless of whether a couple is being married by a priest, judge, or sea captain.

Just my two republic credits worth.

Ritual almost has a negative connotation with me, as in 'routine' but I think it points to how I see it - I try to make everything spiritually significant - everything a ritual of connecting to the Force and exercising insight and outsight (!?). Therefore the negative connotation is just a type of view, most easily understood as pessimistic perhaps but not without value itself.

In that regard, an act of ritual to me seems to exercise/develop something as contrasted against normal non-ritual existence, perhaps because it requires unique supporting activities or participants. But in my practise even that I tend to view as an illusion, at the moment, and so explains why I view isolated ritual like periodic meditation versus non-stop ritual like continuous meditation.

That might be a decidedly introverted approach. Now when I decide to switch my practise around to dissolve self and become a reflection of non-self specifically, activity would probably be dependent on the circumstance but that will be more determined by meeting the needs of others rather then myself.... which means I still am sort of anchored on my initial view.
:pinch:

You have to dig deeper than the greco-roman, western, reductionist, linear, fragmented, compartmentalized, disconnected, democratized, individualized, parts-oriented thought process and think about the whole.

Whyte Horse wrote: You have to dig deeper than the greco-roman, western, reductionist, linear, fragmented, compartmentalized, disconnected, democratized, individualized, parts-oriented thought process and think about the whole.

Yes, this is very true -- that is why we say that to rediscover the 'religious mind' (not 'Religion' as we've so very cleverly institutionalised it) we have to take it back to what it is for - the recreation, the renewal of the Origin of Time :

• by the annual repetition of the cosmogony, Time is regenerated, beginning again in terms of sacred Time, coinciding with illud tempus, when the World came into existence for the very first time (symbolically/figuratively speaking) ;
• by participating ritually in the "end of the World" and its re-Creation, Man became the contemporary of this illud tempus - Man was "born-again" - beginning existence again with all of the vital Force undiminished (this time, "Force" is very closely the Jedi concept of It).

This is why "borrowing" rituals and calling it 'syncretism' doesn't work -- that is like "borrowing" words or syllables from a bunch of languages without a firm grasp of what they mean and sticking them together -- it just turns out to be just quasi-mythic gibberish.

That is why also that just having a "theme party" might be a lot of fun, but it doesn't leave us feeling any more renewed, revitalised or any less shameful/guilty than the day before ... Since we do not participate in the renewal of the World, the recalibration of our Time to sacred Time nor do we let the World go to Hell and then make it afresh (symbolically speaking again of course !), we just continue dragging around a stressful lot of baggage with us from year to year to decade to death. :dry:

Ritual is not as 'for show' as it looks like to the Modern Era mind. There are some quite profound and important psycho-social dynamics to it that one would best not try to imitate with only an amateur skill ...

The beauty of it is, we're all carrying around the professional kit within us. We just need to get it out and unpack it ...

Adder wrote: Ritual almost has a negative connotation with me, as in 'routine' but I think it points to how I see it - I try to make everything spiritually significant

While I agree with this approach to a fairly large degree, it is important to note that things are defined by their "opposites." Just as you cannot conceptualize light without the contrasting darkness, or fullness without knowing what emptiness is, the ability for something to be sacred or "spiritually significant" relies on the demarcation between it and the mundane or "insignificant."

In short, to paraphrase the Incredibles' villain, "If everything's sacred, nothing is."

Alexandre Orion wrote: This is why "borrowing" rituals and calling it 'syncretism' doesn't work -- that is like "borrowing" words or syllables from a bunch of languages without a firm grasp of what they mean and sticking them together -- it just turns out to be just quasi-mythic gibberish.

Yes, but understanding the underlying reasons for said ritual, it can be "translated," which I believe is the core of proper syncretism.

steamboat28 wrote :

Yes, but understanding the underlying reasons for said ritual, it can be "translated," which I believe is the core of proper syncretism.

Yes, I believe that too. But it is that "understanding the underlying reasons for said ritual" that gets left out of the "theme party" variety.

See what I mean ?

steamboat28 wrote:

Adder wrote: Ritual almost has a negative connotation with me, as in 'routine' but I think it points to how I see it - I try to make everything spiritually significant

While I agree with this approach to a fairly large degree, it is important to note that things are defined by their "opposites." Just as you cannot conceptualize light without the contrasting darkness, or fullness without knowing what emptiness is, the ability for something to be sacred or "spiritually significant" relies on the demarcation between it and the mundane or "insignificant."

In short, to paraphrase the Incredibles' villain, "If everything's sacred, nothing is."

I hedge that by the awareness of my shifts in focus :lol:
I'm always ignoring something lol!