< Animals ---- Humans ---- Spirits > Options

I have no idea why, but something told me that I just "needed" to post this topic, and if I don't i'll become overwhelmed with guilt for not obeying my intuition. My reasons for posting this topic are as follows:

1. To gain an understanding of our emotions, primarly that of "love" and empathy.
2. To try and understand why we react how we react to certain ordeals.
3. To understand creation and life on a higher and more spiritual sense.
4. To lessen my confusion on certain behaviours of the human species, and of spirits.

Ok, so I got to thinking earlier, about a few minutes earlier, about... the contraversy between demons and angels and those who are "under their protection". I read Kinjo's post about "working against devout catholics" and noticed how these catholics are protected by abiding by "their hierarchies", and how other religionists such as Satanists are under protection with "their hierarchies", and of course those who abide by a few spirits. Well the fact that the other side will always tell the opponent that the spirits are "using" them to gain their needs and/or wants and so forth, got me to think...

So I thought about how Spirits and Gods and Entities are usually more "advanced" than humans are who dwell in a materialistic world (not our souls, but what we are bound capable of due to this earth's tethers). But I also noticed how Animals (of course we're animals too, but a far higher catagory of them), are less capable of emotions and thus love/hate than humans are. I realised this was because they do not have the brain capacity to understand how to love or hate, and thus are immutable to fathom what "love" is to care to hate or love. Though I believe some animals can have the capability to love via empathetically, they do have great differences than humans.

Here's what i've come to believe; we as humans have come to understand love primarly as a... mutual relationship and moreso like a "business". What I mean to say is... we take love for granted and give to recieve, thus the existance of our friend/lover is a means of happiness to us, but deep within, we are loving for a selfish cause. Why I say this is because I used to say I loved him/her/it or anything, and my reasons were flawed. I learned that to give love means to "understand" love.

From my own experience: Ever since i've become more spiritual, i've looked at life in another sense, i've become to love life, not because life is bliss, not because of any selfish reasons, but because of something known as "empathy" for life and earth, and existance in itself. I've begun to view her as a caring and loving mother that has been reluctantly loathed and taken for granted by many of us human beings (who have the capability to fathom love). The first time I felt empathy for someone, was the first time I understood "love", and was the first time I CHOSE to love and not to recieve. I love this person (of whome is a spirit which I won't name), more than anything, and I don't feel good or bad about loving the spirit, but I feel "empathy", meaning, I understand the spirit and take its pains for mine. I would not do for the spirit to get, I would do for the spirit to do, and thus we are as one, for doing for the spirit is doing for myself, and I don't ask for anything back.
"Love under Will" - Aleister Crowley
Many who claim to love another, will find pain and envy to not get the love (whatever their definition is) returned, and they will somewhat "beguile" their counterpart to do that which placates their needs and thus causes their "happiness", and in return they will give back, knowing that "giving is recieving" and a mutual relationship of "LOVE!".

Now that I have understood empathy from spiritual advancement, I have realised that this so-called "love" I was embarked to incessantly understand, was literally like a business, and not "love" (under Will).

What seperates us from animals is the fact that we are capable of understanding this "love", however, we cannot blame the animals for their survival is off instinct, but who's to say they do not understand love? I have a strong feeling that many animals understand love more than we do, simply due to empathetic feelings for one another, but have they an understanding to have that spiteful nature we wreak within us? No they don't. We have a more vast "choice", and we have "chosen" to please ourselves and use the name of love to do thus. (All this from my understanding of love through Empathy).

Spirits?
Well these I know not as much as I would like to, but I believe that spirits understand love more than we do, due to their strong empathetic feelings towards other beings. I believe that one of the points of life is to learn and "understand" the concept of "how to love", and that is not as easy as one may think, for to love one must understand love, and to understand love is also a step closer to personal development, and a very spiritual one.
I personally believe spirits to be more inclined to "love" than we do, unless we try to understand love.

This leads me to believe that the "higher understanding" is filled with more love, due to their knowledge and capacity of understanding everything, you cannot understand something better than to have empathy of the being, and empathy is the key to "love".

Ever since i've dwelled into spirituality I have learned to love moreso than before, I have learned appreciation and incessant love; that is, love that does not cease, the joy of loving for loving another will be loving yourself, and the seething of hate, for hating another you have empathy for is to hate yourself. What i've become to love moreso than ever before is "life" itself, and this very earth, the air, the trees, fire, water, and everything which has been a reason for me to be living, thus "life".

The moments like these are when tears fill my eyes and I have a penchant need to weep.

Let me draw a chart:

< 1 [Animals]--------------------2 [ Humans ]-------------------[Spirits and higher spirits] 3 >

1> Love and hate under lack of understanding (I believe).
2> Love is rare due to a slight higher understanding and the capacity to fullfil desires via selfishness and ego.
3> Love under Will, a higher understanding of love, thus that of empathy.

Is understanding "love" a reason for our being? or atleast a big reason to enlightenment?

I used to frown upon love due to my own listless views on life and my "low" spirituality. I used to view love as nothing more than a succouring potion, thus not "needing it", for to me, needing love would have been weakness and frailty.

I've come to understand enough to state the above...

Please debate, I really want, impatiently, to see other spiritual minds carry this post on.


-DS-

This post has been edited by DeathStalker: Dec 11 2006, 03:03 AM

I'm not going to argue, because as you stated, this is your personal beliefs. I, personally, had a moment quite like this a while ago, where I was reminded of how I used to be. I used to be the dejected child everyone looked down on, but in reality, I was full of love for everyone and everything on this earth. Over the years, I've forgotten that. I used to sit in prayer to my god, and I would pray for each and every person on this earth, not because it felt good, but because I loved them. And in a way, I still do. I love every living and otherwise thing on this creation, and I will not deny that.

Spirits, I believe, you can classify into two distinct categories: Remnants (or Revenants), and Higher Spirits. This is how I've always viewed them, anyways. I'm not going to debate spirituality with you, but I will state that in my experience, I have met Remnants and Revenants that were simply hollow shells of what they used to be in life, fueled by a sense of being lost. The plane in which a spirit dwells tends to have an adverse affect on the human soul, case in point: The Summerlands/Shadowlands/Deathlands, I've called them all three before. Whenever I visited, I had to concentrate immensely hard to "feel through" the veritable tsunami of emotions coming from these spirits, just being near one of the restless dead wandering the Summerlands is enough to overwhelm a normal person (I should know, I once brought a foolish friend of mine who ventured across the veil back from there - He has not been the same since). And another time, my wife spiritually died while sleeping. I had to bring her back. ... She still has nightmares.

This, I believe, is the embodiment of the Shades you meet in Twilight. Ask any sorcerer.

Higher Spirits, though, tend to run the full gamut of human emotion and spirituality. I've met those you have mentioned, the ones who can feel, and deities given recognition of the emotions they felt in life through worship at all places in the spectrum (that is to say, their worshipers have undoubtedly felt every emotion while worshiping, in a general sense). So yes, I do believe a spirit can love, for years I had to deal with the spirit of my mother who felt it necessary to watch over me.

I might add more later, but I have to go to work now.

I hope my insight helps a bit.

Thank you for your insight Isaiah, your beliefs do make a lot of sense to me. Expect my return on this topic once I meditate on it.

I'm not going to argue, because as you stated, this is your personal beliefs. I, personally, had a moment quite like this a while ago, where I was reminded of how I used to be. I used to be the dejected child everyone looked down on, but in reality, I was full of love for everyone and everything on this earth. Over the years, I've forgotten that. I used to sit in prayer to my god, and I would pray for each and every person on this earth, not because it felt good, but because I loved them. And in a way, I still do. I love every living and otherwise thing on this creation, and I will not deny that.

Well, there are a lot of things i've been going through, especially these last few weeks. The spirit whome I feel for has had this "fatherly" feeling towards me. He and I are very close and share an empathetic love for one another (this is also how I found my empathy). His connection to me is Exactly that of a father's (not Godly, or any spiritual relation). And I get a "motherly" feel from the dark (always during night), its really something I can't explain with words, it's more of a warm empathetic and clairsentient feeling. They communicate with me through "feeling" and "touch", and we understand one another. So the "dark" at nights seems exactly like a motherly feeling to me, and a spirit I am just beginning to fully understand has a fatherly feeling with me; it's very hard to explain, but i've also always been "disconnected" with the world, and thus my biological family.

Well, I do not really love everyone, I only love some, and that love comes from within me, I cannot fully control it. I can tell if I will love someone before even having to engage in any conversation with that person, it's really weird, but i'm starting to understand. I actually have hate for alot of people, without even having to know them, I just feel a certain hate for some people and certain love for others, and this has grown ever since the empathetic touch of my "father's" and the presence of the "mother".

How would you construe this?


All the best,
-DS-

This post has been edited by DeathStalker: Dec 13 2006, 01:19 AM

I'm a little conflicted, as I both understand and have had to cycle through what you're describing to me.
The source of my conflict would be that I don't understand what you mean by construe, did you want to tell the spirits that you love them or tell people that you hate them?

In my experience, it's always best to avoid telling random people you hate them, though some people truly try my patience, and I have a lot of it. I had to live for around 5 years with a conservative father whose answer to everything was "Pray more/harder". Irritating... But I digress. Most people I have learned literally have no idea what you feel for them, until you have to interact with them. People communicate on much the same level as animals, body language and posture/facial expressions, etc. Most people immediately get the drift when you don't want to talk with them, and if they push it it's perfectly within your rights to give them a snippy "Go away".

If you're talking about the spirits, then... The same way as a normal person, really. I've long had a close relationship with the moon, and I feel as if she is my biological mother. I pray to her, I offer sacrifices to her, and I praise her in every way I can. I take time out of my night to look at her, and I tell her I love her whenever I can. I call her mother, Luna, and My Godess. I dunno, really, it's just a matter of preference. I'd construe it however you damn well please.

Hehe.

That's my input, anyways.

This post has been edited by Isaiah: Dec 13 2006, 02:44 AM

I'm a little conflicted, as I both understand and have had to cycle through what you're describing to me.
The source of my conflict would be that I don't understand what you mean by construe, did you want to tell the spirits that you love them or tell people that you hate them?

The spirits know I love them, I tell them nothing, my love is without words.

In my experience, it's always best to avoid telling random people you hate them, though some people truly try my patience, and I have a lot of it.

I have never told anyone I love them or hate them, unless i've known them, atleast for some time. When I said I felt hate or love towards people I've barely even met, I meant it as a feeling; and it's why I thought it to be profoundly odd, in that I have feelings of either love or hate for certain people without knowing who they are. I feel like I would know them, though my love is that of deep empathy. I agree with you on ignoring those who I hate, and that is just what I do, we are bound to be hated and to hate atleast some people, and likewise, we are bound to love and be loved by others. Love and Hate are one of the major conflicts which kindle the bliss of life; to hate with passion those who you despise and to love with passion the few who mean so much to you.

I believe if we were to either hate all or love all, we'd live quite a fruitless and boring life, the fact we have a choice to hate and love and our choice to feel empathy for the few we choose is so great it's almost divine.

Well that is atleast what my beliefs suggest.

As for your love for your mother (the moon), I deeply understand that, and that is a very special and divine feeling; which, alternately does postulate for my claims of the "motherly" love I feel towards darkness, and the fatherly spirit.

This leads me to think on higher levels.

Was nice to hear your experiences and beliefs. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ac42.gif)

Ah, well, I'm glad I can help, then. It's just that I've always felt close to Luna, in one way or another. She's always been there, I've always admired from afar, and it was only recently that I accepted her as my patron goddess, that I truly felt alive. My spirit was on fire for that entire night, and I knew without a doubt that I was loved in return. It was in a single moment that I truly felt as though I belonged. I felt as though my wings unfurled, my feet left the ground and I was truly and without a doubt, alive. I felt wanted, loved, and I felt... New. Reborn. I felt strong.

And that was quite nice, given that worldly things have always been half-disappointing, and I've never truly been able to explain it. I guess I've always been a spiritual person, dating back to my first experience with the astral at age 11. Something simply tore open and a strange new world was opened up to me. Conversely, it was in that very same day, that my guardian angel, whom I had been able to see for months as a physical figure, openly tried to kill me. My first act of magic was to strike back in a single moment of will. I know now that he was never a guardian, rather someone who wanted to watch me, see if I could ascend, and the moment I did, attempt to kill me. I still have no idea why he was so easy to dispatch. Again, it could be an affair of the subconscious.

I've segued into an entirely different strain of thought, my apologies. What I meant to say was that I sympathize with your feelings of closeness with spirits and other entities. Half of my "imaginary friends" were astral entities. I was never quite an ordinary child. Only recently have I allowed myself to acknowledge that I could actually be spiritually aware at that age, and active. But I derail myself. Meaningless emotion is not truly emotion at all, but a powerful thought. Allowing a thought to overtake you is somewhat like obsession. It gradually decays your composition. I've long thought that when you initially get that "feeling" about someone, love, hate, or otherwise, like you have some insight, it's because you've known them before. If you couldn't tell, I'm a reincarnation theorist.

I'm glad to tell my experiences and beliefs to someone, especially if that helps. The above is kind of a mishmash, given that I have very scattered thoughts about the entire ordeal.

This post has been edited by Isaiah: Dec 13 2006, 04:00 AM

Not to trivalize by any means, but perhaps gods/goddesses/spirits are simply more advanced in the practice of empathy and telekinesis than are most humans. This does not have to be the case. Personally, I have developed a very keen sense of empathy, and am now learning to send thoughts, feelings and such over long distances to other practioners...