Religion
Related: About this forum12 Symptoms of a Spiritual Awakening
Food for thought and I think attainable with or without religion.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)demosincebirth
(12,543 posts)Skittles
(153,193 posts)you're just more adept at ignoring them
demosincebirth
(12,543 posts)Skittles
(153,193 posts)roguevalley
(40,656 posts)that some people feel when their hearts change and then become more open to the now and living for now than worrying about things that don't matter. It took the death of my parents, four dogs and my sister's injury in the space of five years to make it clear to me that the items on the list can be true when change comes to you.
I don't see religion there at all.
Skittles
(153,193 posts)you are correct: religion is NOT required to be a better person or a happier person
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Some find it there, others do not.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)sometimes they infuriate me.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)EvolveOrConvolve
(6,452 posts)raccoon
(31,119 posts)edhopper
(33,615 posts)idea of Self-Actualization.
I don't know what the "Spiritual" part means. Seems superfluous.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Most of the people I've met who exhibit these symptoms don't develop them within either a purely secular or a traditionally religious framework. Most of them seem to come from one of the more recent schools of personal development that incorporate depth psychology along with with a spiritual philosophy like Buddhism or some other non-dualist school of thought.
Traditional religious and secular approaches tend to leave out different symptoms from their overall structure, and end up being incomplete as a result.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)So definitely attainable without religion.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,361 posts)It makes it seem like a very subjective list - many people who would regard themselves as "spiritually awake", "aware" etc., whether religious or not, would regard activism as vital part of spirituality, not a hindrance to it.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)It always brings me back to Huxley's "After Many A Summer" and the conversations between Propter the philosopher, Jeremy the scholar and Pete the romantic idealist. Propter explains about the three levels of existence; the animal level, the spiritual level and the strictly human level.
Activism operates on the strictly human level.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Engaged Buddhists definitely see activism as a part of their practice.
To me that point speaks of dropping one's attachment to specific outcomes. I may work toward preferred outcomes, but if things don't go the way I want I accept that and go on to something else.
It's kind of like seeing the universe as a democracy - all outcomes are result of a vote consisting of the actions or influences of all the stakeholders (ranging from other people to the laws of physics). My vote/action is only one of many that has a bearing on the outcome. If I get outvoted I accept it and move on. To me the symptom doesn't mean "don't vote" so much as it means "vote, then accept whatever the outcome is."
One more thought:
Action in favour of a preferred outcome can be judgement-free, while "activism" seems to have more to do with getting other people to behave the way you think they should. I do have issues with that, since I think that right and wrong are human illusions, and that "should" is the single most pernicious word in the English language. But that's just me. YMMV, and you get a vote in everything too.