Vagueness In Spirituality, Anyone else notice this Options

I have been noticing a common practice with anything "spiritual", be it one of the many yogas or occult groups or religions. They are all vague about what joining or practicing will do/accomplish/benefit. "Make you life better" sound nice but it is not much to go on. Perhaps I am spoiled, having come from academia where everything is laid out with what is taught, why and what you can get out of the course.

Recently while talking to several priests, Taoist and Buddhist, about empowerment, classes and what I can expect, I was met with almost dismissive vagueness and tired cliches. After talking with them I am just as uninformed as when I started - having no better idea of why such and such a thing is done or what it enables. Looking back, I find a lot of my current practice where not explained, and lacking that it took much longer to gain anything from them, only after long practice did I have enough knowledge to judge their worth. Indeed many that look promising turned out to be useless to me after months of work.

Vagueness in spirituality is necessary to some existent, but with a little application the people who run these orders, and organizations could explain things clearly.

This post has been edited by fatherjhon: Apr 5 2012, 10:06 PM

Most everything I know about Buddhism came from the fake it till you make it approach. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I do not have an issue with vagueness in outcome or even the ambiguity of what we learn, so much as I take issue with spiritual teachers asking for commitments to a path/program without providing information. Particularly on what the intended outcome is, and what I will give up by doing such and such a practice. A lot of magick that has taboos, which if kept will yield some power or effectiveness, and by doing so prevent you from using some other power. Vajrayana for example aims you at Bodhisattva which prevents for the most part tantric shakti practice. Then there is always the possibility that there is an aspect of the practice that would have caused me to avoid it if I had known.

Part of the problem/beauty of it is that magic and culture are very intertwined, The Art is universal, but there are many different ways of developing an idea. You can climb a single mountain an infinite number of ways but at the end you're still reaching the same peak. I've always felt that this finesse is something missing with many of the teachers teachings nowadays and part of that is it requires a great deal of knowledge and flexibility of world view which can be fantastically difficult to teach and impart.

That is where I find vague phasing like "this practice doesn't prevent you from doing anything, they are all choices" very unhelpful. naturally there are choices but being unenlightened, uninitiated, and uninformed I need help evaluating the consequences of such and such a practice. Perhaps my real concern is that spiritual/occult/religious work is supposed to be empowering, but the people who safe guard that empowerment don't empower you to make informed decisions about your spiritual path. Forcing you to commit time, energy and faith in something that, you are told, will make your life better, though any determination on that has to be made long after the fact.

I think this problem is most detrimental when you meet someone that doesn't embody the way that they're teaching, I think if you look at groups you'll often find the ones with the most intense spirituality who understand the concept the most is often a few of the students rather than the teachers. People who live and breathe the path they speak of at least are leading from the front rather than simply handing out words and ways that they know are valid but are not really part of their own repertoire.

To avoid vagueness in spirituality I try to have current goals with defined variables. When I define the variables of my goal and neatly order them by taking into consideration my experience, desires, and capability, I end up with the parameters of my practice of magic. I think that structured context and clearly defined variables is the result of successfully making use of interdisciplinary knowledge, and that it is this system that helps people avoid the issue of superficial ambiguity in any field of study or practice.

Actually this is probably one of the most difficult aspects of magic, what I'm reading is that you carefully pick your your target and make a thorough effort to see the path toward reaching said target. This kind've clarity is indeed a great step toward having the concrete application of magic which many ardently strive toward.

This post has been edited by Bb3: Apr 11 2012, 07:16 PM

I've always felt that this finesse is something missing with many of the teachers teachings nowadays and part of that is it requires a great deal of knowledge and flexibility of world view which can be fantastically difficult to teach and impart....I think if you look at groups you'll often find the ones with the most intense spirituality who understand the concept the most is often a few of the students rather than the teachers. People who live and breathe the path they speak of at least are leading from the front rather than simply handing out words and ways that they know are valid but are not really part of their own repertoire.

That is well put. Teachers lacking a finesse to articulate meaningfully something they have not made the center of their life, leads to unhelpful vagueness - perhaps because they themselves are not able to penetrate the vagueness inherent in spirituality. Where then does the spiritual seeker go? To a "true guru" no doubt, but we have established that they are hard to come by.

My own approach is too look for books by the great masters of the past, any book by a recognized master should stand the test of time, so I buy very little written less than 100 years ago. Still, I have a book shelf of maybe 200 books and more e-books than I could ever read, and only 12 or so have been of use to me.

I assume that spirituality is more than abiding in that happy fuzzy feeling you get when you are closer to your higher power. (One can get that without much trouble. The other type that brings with it the ability to rule ones life accordion to ones will is much harder to find.) The more I think on this the more I am convinced that looking for a spiritual teacher is not the right approach. Rather, if spirituality is empowering, then one should act affirmatively in ones spirituality and seek out divinity on ones' own. A sort of boot strap approach to higher powers. Setting aside how difficult that is, what is to prevent you from becoming a token hippy - chasing after some tangential phenomenon thinking it will bring power. I have seen so many devout people utterly unable to make anything out of there lives I must question the validity of doing it yourself.

Vagrant, is that what you meant or perhaps could it be extrapolated from your comment about Karma. That spirituality's inherent vagueness (and less than ideal teachers) means your fated to make it only so far and no further?

Vagrant, is that what you meant or perhaps could it be extrapolated from your comment about Karma. That spirituality's inherent vagueness (and less than ideal teachers) means your fated to make it only so far and no further?

There is a concept of transmuting karma, but yes basically. If you are meant to find union with a higher power, then you will do it no matter what you make the center of your life (assuming the intention is there - you can, I think, take steps backwards/accrue more karmas). So we hear old stories, or about characters, who were enlightened while baking bread, making tea, etc.

On the other hand, if you have karma to work out these things will continually arise between you and your quest for union until you either work them out or transmute them. There are practices like chanting, puja, selfless service, etc., which are said to transmute karma. Somewhere I have heard that selfless service to all beings is the fastest path to enlightenment.

So I don't know about 'fated' - but, I think that depending on where we 'start out' in one life there can be so much karma to overcome that we are entirely distracted from any spiritual path. On the other hand, we can have so little karma left that almost from birth we are attracted to the 'light' at the end of the path and can hardly focus on anything else. I think between the extremes is a very fine gradient, so that there are people who may be distracted but still see past it all and focus on the light, and people who have always seen it there but get distracted by something along the way and lose sight of it. Sometimes the distractions are teachers, and sometimes we are too distracted to learn from someone who can teach.

I have been around the block with teachers, both seeking them out and learning from them. I have encountered some concrete and some vague teachings - the most important of these was that the teacher doesn't teach. If there are fifty people in a room with a 'teacher', and only one of them is karmically prepared for enlightnment, the teacher could say anything at all and that one student would become enlightened - the other 49 could hear the most profound words, the most perfect truth that could be spoken, and that teacher might as well have told a story about taking out their garbage that morning.

I think it is meant to suggest that enlightenment, spiritual advancement, is not really found in a teacher in the first place. They might be like sign posts along our path, but if you are ready for it then anything will trigger it; if you aren't, then no teacher can instruct you to make you ready for it.

Now when it comes to occult power, that's different. And the two are very often confused. Occult power can be a by product of advancement, but it can develop without advancement as well - though if you believe the stories, that which arises from advancement 'trumps' that which does not. However, the fundamentals of occult power in isolation require only a strong will to cultivate them. The rest is dressing.

Anyway, that's my take on it. If it's hard to find a teacher, but you can stick to it anyway, then you are likely free enough from distractions to make it there; if you are simply unable to hold yourself back from chasing it, perhaps you have very little karma left between. If at some point you give up, then you weren't meant to get there in this life in the first place.

peace

There is a concept of transmuting karma, but yes basically. If you are meant to find union with a higher power, then you will do it no matter what you make the center of your life...so that there are people who may be distracted but still see past it all and focus on the light, and people who have always seen it there but get distracted by something along the way and lose sight of it. Sometimes the distractions are teachers, and sometimes we are too distracted to learn from someone who can teach.

I think it is meant to suggest that enlightenment, spiritual advancement, is not really found in a teacher in the first place. They might be like sign posts along our path, but if you are ready for it then anything will trigger it; if you aren't, then no teacher can instruct you to make you ready for it.

Now when it comes to occult power, that's different. And the two are very often confused. Occult power can be a by product of advancement, but it can develop without advancement as well - though if you believe the stories, that which arises from advancement 'trumps' that which does not. However, the fundamentals of occult power in isolation require only a strong will to cultivate them. The rest is dressing.

I was going respond with a lovely post but the more I wrote the more I became aware I was arguing further from the truth.

Instead, let me say very shortly what I think I understand now. Will and Concentration are two of the foundations of occult work, both of which are required to keep your eye on a goal despite distracting karma. Teachers are helpful but hit or miss depending on if you meet the right teacher for the right student with the right conditions. Enlightenment or magick (i still think of them as the same) involves a lot of struggling towards something you can't quite know until you get there.