I’ve been contemplating how to respond to this topic, as it was very difficult to pinpoint an exact “awakening” experience (especially now that there’s been so many years worth of different experiences on that path.) But the IP work this morning jogged some things loose, so I’ll go back to the original questions and take a crack at it. [And thank you for inviting the reflection, and for those who have worked to keep the discussions productive.]
>Express what it was that has awakened your spiritually and how that has guided your beliefs as you see them today.<
The formative experience was the period in my teens which resulted in me meeting my first teacher and becoming his apprentice. It was literally a point where I thought I was going crazy - intense, often terrifying dreams, a sense of being in contact with something that was challenging the religious indoctrination I was raised with...all that on top of the usual 14-year-old’s angst and chemical madness. I had no positive way of looking at it, or a language for it. The religious world I was raised in treated such things as the work of the Devil, especially when they caused you to question doctrine. Being inherently curious, I ran towards the source of the experiences rather than away, which led to my first confused dabblings in esotericism. Thankfully, I met the student of my later teacher, who helped stabilize me, taught me “the rules”, and exposed me to different cultural ways of understanding what was going on. She passed me on to her teacher, who guided me as a friend through the early training (teaching me the basics of mindfulness, showing me other ways of looking at things) until I was of age to be considered for apprenticeship.
So that experience laid the foundation for my beliefs - I learned that the experiences provided by dreams and visions were valid, thought they needed to be carefully worked with in order to not lead to greater confusion, and that it was part of a relationship with a world that was more nuanced than both the religious and scientific one I’d been raised with. Different cultures expressed this relationship as far more than just the “good vs. evil” paradigm I’d been started out with, so there was a lot to be learned about the language and methods of interacting with it from the study of other spiritual realities.
>>What powers do you have, what rites or sacrifices are there in your belief. <<
Whatever I have is part of what we naturally have, as human beings. We have an imagination for the purpose of being able to connect with the imaginal world, to be able to have wider range of information than just what our immediate senses provide. We have a body that is made up of different systems, only some of which can be scientifically analyzed with the instruments we have at present. We’re part of an incredibly complex existence, where the power of our intent can do wonders, but is also bound by conditions that are far beyond our power to control. Ritual, for me, is how all this gets negotiated, how I keep myself aware, awake, and consciously participating. As for sacrifice, just being here and playing the game of it is a form of sacrifice and contribution to the life around me. I personally would much rather just be waves of energy, but since I’m here, might as well try to be useful.
>>What is the goal of your belief, your afterlife<<
These are all personal ones, but the goal is to learn as much as possible, to improve my ability to interact with this larger Reality (thus liberating myself from the perception of being bound by the physical senses), and to change the state of this existence from suffering and powerlessness to realizing the beauty and delight of being a part of it (which leads to real power). That does, quite often, mean getting in the pit and using my force to stop the main obstacles that are causing suffering and powerlessness. Afterlife is of little concern to me. I hope for pure oblivion - but I suspect it’s not that easy.
>>Is there a saving element, a plan or destiny to what you believe?<<
The closest I have to it is the concept of Repair (or “tikkun”, as it’s expressed in Judaism) - there are errors caused by our inability to perceive Reality, and they result in confusion and degradation. Whatever is out there that is capable of seeing the gaps tries to make corrections. I do ascribe to the general belief in a collective ordering of individual expressions of life into a great pattern of Life, which can be called True Will, Wyrd/Wurt, or just “The Force”.
>> Is there a beginning, an end?<<
Couldn’t begin to say. But I don’t see my own existence as having clearly defined starts and stops, just a temporal personality designed to fit the present circumstances. It may be that way in general.
>>How was life started and how can world peace ever be attained.<<
Life was started a long long time ago, and the bulk of humanity’s portion of it is completely unknown. Our “history” only accounts for a fragment of it, but what we’ve got there so far leads me to believe that world peace will not ever be attained...the best we can do is to continue to try to improve our behaviors and find a way to not destroy our ability to live here. I’m actually not optimistic in this respect, but we have to do what we can.
>> And finally how does this church affect and effect what you currently believe?<<
That’s not clear to me yet. There’s a lot here that is really helping my current work and studies, as there’s a lot of similarity in the beliefs and the openness (being free from a historical tradition or prophetic belief) is very useful. I have made some new friends that are welcome companions on the journey, and that has been really a great blessing. I also find that there’s a lot here that is a repeat of what wasn’t beneficial in earlier associations, so... we’ll see what happens down the road.
As far as being able to scientifically verify it - that’s going to depend on what one is trying to prove, in my book. I do temper everything with a healthy, balanced skepticism - that’s just a useful way of examining it further. I seek out scientific studies that can help me understand it better, and I analyze their insights and shortcomings. In some cases, knowing that a experience is a hypnopompic hallucination is incredibly helpful to put it into perspective when my senses are freaking out, but it doesn’t tell me much about what meaning can be found in the experience. Science is basically one of the many tools in the bag for breaking this thing open.
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