The Physicality of Spirituality

I am not going to try to define a soul or talk about God. This thread will be very limited to keep as many people interested as possible. I hope that others will be able to elaborate on this topic. Please debate responsibly

Merriam-Webster, in my opinion, does a poor job in defining spirituality:

1 : something that in ecclesiastical law belongs to the church or to a cleric as such
2 : clergy
3 : sensitivity or attachment to religious values

Oxford Dictionaries seems to come closer to correctly defining the word, spirituality (at least in the sense it's more universal):

The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

I am hoping to focus on the physical parts that relate to the nonphysical. Let's first start with the pineal gland. There has been much attention drawn to the pineal gland through sleep studies, and third eye chakra in Hinduism. However, I will only be focusing on physical side of this subject for this thread.

According to britannica.com,

The pineal gland develops from the roof of the diencephalon, a section of the brain, and is located behind the third cerebral ventricle in the brain midline (between the two cerebral hemispheres). Its name is derived from its shape, which is similar to that of a pine cone (Latin pinea)

So this gland sits in the middle of the brain and is shaped like a pine cone. Many studies have shown this gland to regulate melatonin, and deals with the sleep cycle. There has been many hypothesizes that the pineal gland is the seat of the soul, but more importantly for this thread, its connection to spirituality/the occult. I am not saying I support these religions I am about to present; however, there is knowledge in these symbols so no reason to limit yourself to non-religious symbols only.

First up Egyptians:

This pine cone staff is a symbol of the solar god Osiris.


Maybe just coincidental?

Next we have Greeks:

This is Dionysus, the Greek god, carrying a pine cone staff as a fertility symbol.

Romans:


Roman Catholics:




Eastern Religions (Hinduism is blatant about it with the third eye chakra):

Ignore the repeated Egyptian symbol. Buddha is the one depicted with the pine cone on his head.



And lastly, Nazis?

Some may say that the pine cone shape on the eagle is coincidental; however, when you think about how much the Nazi's were into the occult, this shape seems like it was purposely chosen.


If none of this has raised any questions in your mind hopefully this quote from Wikipedia will:

Nearly all vertebrate species possess a pineal gland. The most important exception is the hagfish, which is often thought of as the most primitive extant vertebrate

Now something not so commonplace.
If I have not lost you by this point there is one other most important factors that I have never heard thoroughly discussed before, the pupil. Many people call the eyes the window of the soul. Yet all we see out of our eyes is a tiny fragment of the spectrum of vibrations around us. The pupil determines the amount of light being let in, while the iris is the muscle that helps to focus/resize.

It seems very interesting to me that when you are on opiates, such as heroine, your pupils become pinpoints. There is very little light being let into your brain. You have become distant from the real light of this planet. On the other hand, when ingesting a psychedelic , such as magic mushrooms or lysergic acid diethylamide (L.S.D), the body's pupils become much larger. The body begins to be able to take in more light. Many people have reported spiritual undertakings on these psychedelics, and it seems very realistic the increased light in take helps to increase this enlightenment (along with increased brain activity). Everyone always talks about the battle between good and evil, the dark and the light. Maybe when we are describing people as wide-eyed we really are referring to their pupils and their ability to see the light??

Let me know what you think.



the lies,
let's find the truth.
love, light, magnetism

I will say I am curious.

How did all those ancient cultures know it was shaped like a pine cone? And If they were able to "dissect" a brain and see it, how did they know what that specific area was for?

What did they "know"?

Fascinating subject.

Don't know what to do with it other than keep living with my curiosity about WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED IN THESE 14 BILLIONS YEARS SINCE THE BIG BANG.

Anyways, don't get me started, lol.

S&F!

Many spiritualists talk about the mind, body, spirit dichotomy. Mind = thinking, body = moving, spirit = feeling

There are parts of the body and brain that create our emotions but I think when most people talk about spirit they mean a person's overall enthusiasm for reality.

a reply to: chiefsmom

That is one big question I am interested in. We may know way more about technology than our ancestors, but it seems they knew way more about themselves and our planet. If we only really knew our history we wouldn't have to repeat it

a reply to: AurorasRays


Regarding the definitions you refer too, within the 4 Quadrants of AQAL, one can define anything within on of the four quadrants


en.wikipedia.org...(Ken_Wilber)




Regarding the soul, a word that is in fact absent from ancient scriptures as we understand it today.

The closet definitions we can get are words from the Semitic languages and Greek that are words that mean breath which actually refer mainly to what religions know as SPIRIT.

In other words, strangely, there is no one universal word within ancient spiritual documents for the soul…!


Ka and Ba, for instance, in Egyptology are separate terms referring to aspects of the soul


In my long study, I have concluded there is certainly something we can call a soul but it is made up of three primary aspects of being...


I will call them: 1….Tau=1


2….Holy Spirit=9


3…The Essence=22


Soul=32


Buddha said that there are ONLY 32 levels of primary consciousness


There is no one word to describe this in any spiritual language


I would call it

The Holistic Self or god

Nephesh is Hebrew and means

"to breathe."

Arabic the word is Nafs, which means breath also

The Greek word pnoe, which means wind and or breath, are three words that they sometimes use to denote soul. However, they are not inclusive enough
Therefore, as I said there is no one word for SOUL in any scriptures.
There are words for spirit but not for soul

Hindu( Vedanta) uses the word Atman. That may be the best term we have

Ātman (/ˈɑːtmən/) is a Sanskrit word that means inner self or soul.[1][2][3] In Hindu philosophy, especially in the Vedanta school of Hinduism, Ātman is the first principle,[4] the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual. In order to attain liberation (moksha), a human being must acquire self-knowledge (atma jnana), which is to realize that one's true self (Ātman) is identical with the transcendent self Brahman.[2][5]

en.wikipedia.org...(Hinduism)

a reply to: AurorasRays

I've posted this before in places, but bear in mind this is a great complement to your thread on sight within. If you take apart each sentence, there are very valuable clues within the text. Kore Kosmou

This is a dialogue between ISIS and Horus regarding the evaporation of the soul into a human body. The reaction here is from the soul changing sight of the inner light with that of the outer.

"Great Heaven," said one, "principle of our birth, ether, pure airs, hands, and sacred breath of the sovereign the Divine, and you, shining Stars, eyes of the Gods, unwearying light of Sun and Moon, our early brethren, what grief, what rending is this! Must we quit these vast, effulgent spaces, this sacred sphere, all these splendors of the empyrean and of the happy republic of the Gods, to be precipitated into these vile and miserable abodes? What crime, O wretched ones, have we committed? How can we have merited, poor sinners that we are, the penalties which await us? Behold the sad future in store for us--to minister to the wants of a fluctuating and dissoluble body! No more may our eyes distinguish the souls divine! Hardly through these watery spheres shall we perceive, with sighs, our ancestral heaven; at intervals even we shall cease altogether to behold it. By this disastrous sentence direct vision is denied to us; we can see only by the aid of the outer light; these are but windows that we possess--not eyes. Nor will our pain be less when we hear in the air the fraternal breathing of the winds with which no longer can we mingle our own, since that will have for its dwelling, instead of the sublime and open world, the narrow prison of the breast! But Thou, Who drivest us forth, and causest us from so high a seat to descend so low, assign a limit to our sufferings! O Master and Father, so quickly become indifferent to Thy handiwork, appoint a term to our penance, deign to bestow on us some last words, while yet we are able to behold the expanse of the luminous spheres!"

The SOUL is inclusive of everything in us that primarily fuels our human and divine existence.
Unfortunately, human beings are cut off from probably 90 percent of their soul through what is known as The Fall Of Man experience in primordial times.

In that Fall humans lost perception and use of the divine part of our soul.

In fact, ALL religion and spirituality exists solely to regain that capacity we’ve lost.

So when they say “your going to lose your soul.”
That’s wrong, we’ve already lost our souls, were just trying to get them back.

originally posted by: Willtell
The SOUL is inclusive of everything in us that primarily fuels our human and divine existence.
Unfortunately, human beings are cut off from probably 90 percent of their soul through what is known as The Fall Of Man experience in primordial times.

In that Fall humans lost perception and use of the divine part of our soul.

In fact, ALL religion and spirituality exists solely to regain that capacity we’ve lost.

So when they say “your going to lose your soul.”
That’s wrong, we’ve already lost our souls, were just trying to get them back.

If you say people "have to wake up" I am going to puke. I'm so sick of people using the wake-up metaphor for anything..

a reply to: DayAfterTomorrow

We all live "to behold the expanse of the luminous spheres". This makes me think of the following story:

"A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Above him, he noticed two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. Just then, the man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!"

"Life is suffering" the Buddha

a reply to: dfnj2015

Good story. Appreciate the now Tangled in a vine. No matter when or where, duality is relative to the world around is. Why and how come after the fruit falls from the vine. Death happens to us all. Overcome the beast with wisdom.

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: Willtell
The SOUL is inclusive of everything in us that primarily fuels our human and divine existence.
Unfortunately, human beings are cut off from probably 90 percent of their soul through what is known as The Fall Of Man experience in primordial times.

In that Fall humans lost perception and use of the divine part of our soul.

In fact, ALL religion and spirituality exists solely to regain that capacity we’ve lost.

So when they say “your going to lose your soul.”
That’s wrong, we’ve already lost our souls, were just trying to get them back.

If you say people "have to wake up" I am going to puke. I'm so sick of people using the wake-up metaphor for anything..

Did I mention waking up?

Its a decent term but you may be tired of its overuse

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: DayAfterTomorrow

We all live "to behold the expanse of the luminous spheres". This makes me think of the following story:

"A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Above him, he noticed two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. Just then, the man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!"

"Life is suffering" the Buddha

As sweet as he tasted to the lion…eh


I think that story is about a lesson that we should concentrate on what is most important

This is getting into what is called by critics pseudo-science, but in reality the science of religion founded on yoga or breath control and foundation for all outer religion which depicts this in art and symbols such as the pine cone. The Book of Revelation of the Bible is all about the 7 churches, lights, etc, enlightenment, which are the energy points in the body.

The physical energy points (chakras) and seat of consciousness in the brain (pineal gland), have all been discovered by way of breath control experimentation by the sages who speak about from their "mystical" experiences.

The modern medical symbol is a representation of the cerbral-spinal system. The path ones energy force (prana) take can be brought to control and regulated for optimal health and existence.

Ancient Aliens theorists would like us to believe it's all off world aliens referenced in the Bible but that is not true, the Book of Revelation is all about inner mystical experiences mostly related to physical points in the human body, not UFOs.

Scientists and atheists call it "woo woo" or "mumbo jumbo" but for those who discover it themselves it's the validation of religion and the existence of soul and God.