In the begining I felt a bit uncomfortable because in the group meditations, ladies and guys sit or dance separated from each other. Later I realised this is due to my feeling more non-binary than most people. I also had to get used to the picture of the guru in front of the meditation room.
Indeed, but if you put that into practice you can expect fierce resistance, being ostracised, persecuted or demonized. Religious people are mostly goody-goody people, they are afraid of following dharma.
They are not the ones who will stand by you when evil forces try to crush you.
So we can agree that it is not as black and white as you seemed to suggest earlier and that having a personal relationship with God or Guru need not be based on any religious dogma. It can be part of a practical spiritual cult which yields immediate results rather than make promises of a place...
There are certain Buddhist practices in which they meditate on certain Buddhist gods or guru's (teachers).
So how is that different from Hindu type practices using God/Guru or gods for spiritual practice?
Why or how do you see any dogma involved in such practices?
Is it also risky to make meaning in life on the teachings of Gautama Buddha? His promise of enlightenment might also be an illusion and "create a big crisis"?
Experience of the results of spiritual practice may start from day 1. People need faith or trust though to continue on the path, faith...
This is nowhere near a 'Gita discussion'. Can we please remain on topic?
How does Krishna describe Himself in the Gita and how does this relate to how Baha'u'llah and other Bahai people describe Him?
It would indeed be very nice to finally see that common ground factually (not vaguely) being demonstrated. After all those threads I have not seen it happen though. But perhaps when actual teachings are quoted we may see something happen after all.
It does happen also in seemingly subtle ways, sometimes openly hostile or aggressive.
But I've seen the same happen much more on other religious forums that weren't even American.
Sufism is the only path that comes close to my form of Tantra, so I'm glad you are still here for a while more at least. I wish there were more sufi's here.
I just enjoy reading about other people's paths and I'm still amazed at how comparatively different but sometimes also similar some of...
I don't see God as the "One between the gaps", God is there all the time, at the Big Bang and inside every particle imagining the unfolding of the whole universe.
What convinces me that God is doing this is the fact that there is life and that consciousness increases in an ever increasing...
When I feel sleep is approaching, I quickly freshen up in the bathroom, do a short meditation and drop off to sleep in an instant.
It is seldom noisy here, but if it sometimes is, I'll wear my noise cancelling head phones, drop off and remove them further in the night if I'm aware of them.
So I guess your vision would be that I am following an outdated or not enough updated faith?
The founder of my faith in your eyes would be Shrii Krishna who was important for His age but whose teachings are now surpassed in importance by those of Bahá'u'llah?
The Bahai seem to punch above their weight in trying to force the dharmic viewpoints into their own viewpoint.
I myself believe that Tantra is the central cult on which all serious spiritual traditions depend.
If you cannot find a tantric centre inside a faith it will always be weaker because...
In my spiritual cult (not part of a religion), the monks wear turbans and the nuns wear ehm caps?
They are part of the uniform for celibate missionaries.
Orange colour represents selfless service to all.
Family teachers may wear white clothing and white head dress.
Thank you very much indeed for your detailed and useful replies.
They do explain a lot but don't take away my objections to the practices that I questioned.
As to the muslim type of prayer not being an exercise, there is no need to move your head to each side when addressing Allah nor is it...
Thanks!
I have no objections to Islam whatsoever (and I wouldn't dare) and I even like Sufism a lot.
There are some things about Islam that puzzle me though.
* Muslims are mostly not vegetarians, they kill innocent animals for food. Why is this acceptable to muslims?
* The Islamic Shariah law...
If you like I could find and copy the etymological-philosophical explanations from my scriptures. In religions the original meaning gets changed ("stretched"). The tantric explanations stay closest to the actual meaning of the Sanskrit words.
Shrii is indeed used honorific, but it has a specific...
My reason is that I had mystical experiences during meditation and Ba'ba demonstrated it to me several times both in individual situations and in collective situations.