Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Religion, Mysticism and Spirituality

This post is inspired by something my pdoc wrote, and also a discussion we had last week in my session. We were talking about spirituality and the difficulty many of us have (me included) with the dogmatic beliefs found in all kinds of religions and spiritual beliefs. Before I begin this post I would like to mention that I think whatever your spiritual beliefs are is certainly not an issue with me. I believe we all have the right to believe what ever it is we do.

I know for my Mom, her belief in God played a huge part in her allowing her to have both a better life and accept her particularly difficult death. Her belief in God strengthened her every step of the way. I am so happy she had God's love to turn to when she needed it. This post is not about telling anyone what is or is not right, or wrong. It is simply a post about my beliefs, lack of beliefs and struggle to believe in something beyond this one plane of existence and experience.

I am not sure what I believe. To me insisting there definitely is a God, or insisting there definitely is not a God are both impossible statements to prove. So for me both fundamentalism (in any religion) and atheism are equally difficult positions to logically hold. This does not mean either are not correct; simply that no one can prove either the existence or non-existence of God.

I would say I am agnostic but hopeful their is something beyond this existence. I really struggle with the idea that everything begins and ends here in the world we experience on a sensual level. I also have had so many experiences that point to something beyond the scientifically proven and accepted theories of evolution and existence. They happen too often for me to ignore them. Maybe there is some kind of mystical force running through our lives.

Believe me it is very difficult for me to say that last statement. I am vehemently opposed to believing things with no proof, but sometimes my experiences seem to be showing me the proof and I keep ignoring the messages. Maybe there are "instances" where people are connected to another plane of existence, or experience beyond the here and now. No I am not being delusional. I'm just trying to understand what I experience.

After last weeks session it happened again; something that felt like a communication had taken place between my sister and I with no words being spoken. My sisters, and my Mom when she was alive , seem particularly in sync with one another, despite living very far away from each other and not talking that often.

In my last session Dr. X asked me what I was working on with my paintings. I told him am working hard to develop a series of conceptual paintings based on extreme close ups of images, taken out of context. Anyways, as our conversation ended we somehow got onto the topic of "foresight"; the ability to see/know something before either it happens, or before you have any knowledge of it happening.

I was telling Dr. X. how it seems like too many things happen to me this way for me not to have some kind of foresight. The last thing he said to me before my session was up was, I do seem to have foresight and he has seen proof of it.

I have dreams that come real, especially about animals dying...which is awful. Years ago I dreamt my cat was drowning. I went outside at 4am in my rain gear and found him dead in a puddle at the side of the road. I dreamt about dead dogs laying in the ditch and woke to find my neighbours dog dead. I dreamt I would find my cat that had been lost for 8 months and told my husband in the morning to look for him...he laughed and told me I was out of my mind...but at 10:00 am I got a call saying he had found the cat, but under the shed. Unfortunately, he was dead.

Last week, when I came home from my appt, there was a message from my sister. I called her and she asked me if it would be possible to paint three paintings based on parts of zebras for my nieces newly decorated bedroom. She didn't want whole Zebras, but exactly the type of paintings I had been thinking about (I never told anyone before D. X). It was strangely familiar to have things happen magically right when I am thinking hard about them. I don't believe in this stuff, but it sure seems like something/someone wants me to.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know, I believe in God. I believe in Him b/c I've had an experience with Him not b/c a world is telling me to. As you wrote of your Mom being helped with her belief as am I by believing--or I would never make it through this mental illness. I feel at times that it is about to break me and yet I have a strong belief in God. Weird, huh? Speaking of dreams, I've had the same thing happen to me in my dream life...so much to the extent that I can't ignore it. Jesus came to visit me in my dream when I was 4 to tell me that my gpa was dying. I woke up the next am and my mom was on the phone with my gma...my gpa had just died. We were very close. It seems I always am given dreams about those close to me. At any rate, this was a good topic. It made me think and I enjoy that. And I appreciate not being told what to believe. That happens so much these days and it turns people away from it all.

Enjoy your day...Kara

Aqua said...

Hi Kara,
I know you believe in God and I really respect that. I loved hearing what led you to believe.

The week after my Mom died I went to my pdoc appt and inconsolable. I sobbed through my whole appt, and then in the washroom afterwards. I calmed down and went outside.

As I stepped outside there was a man in front of me, backlit by the sunshine so rather than seeing his features all I saw was a manwith a huge halo surounding his head (like you see in pictures of Jesus from the medieval times).

He walked directly towards me and said, "Everything will be allright. God loves you". Of course I started to cry again...but the image and the man, and the comment are stuck in my mind.
Thanks for your comment.
You have a good day too.
...aqua

Handsome B. Wonderful said...

I can relate to the psychic connection that you mentioned about yourself. I woke up early in the morning when my fav. grandmother died feeling like someone in my family was dead or in trouble.

So I called my parents and they said that they had just heard the news that she had died.

I really find a lot of peace in Buddhism as you know but I don't think that there is any one way to find spiritual peace. I don't think any religion has a patent on truth.

I also do not believe in a Creator God but I'm not shutting the door completely. I'd say it's 99% shut though.