david hobbs
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Are you Spiritually SelfishA while back I was listening to the Bishop of somewhere or the other on the radio.
The interviewer ask him what he thought of Mystics and Occultists as compared the the Christian Church because New Age type belief was evidently becoming more and more popular among the population.
The Bishop replied that Whilst Christians work for each other the Mystics etc where only interested in themselves and had a totally selfish point of view on life.
Is he right I wonder?
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Raymond
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I am.
I follow the darker side of paganism and that teaches all about improvement of the self and one's own life.
Darker pagans can work to help others if they wish to but mostly they work just for themselves.
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evergreen
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Um I've thought about this and thought about it.... are mystics selfish ? ... first of all its ridiculous to make any generalisation about any one faction of the community or any belief system.. but speaking for myself I'd say I am not selfish I have had to learn to actually think of myself a lot more.... I am most likely no more or less selfish than anyone else out there regardless of our beliefs
am I spiritually selfish - I don't get that much information for me it is always for others... is that unselfish .. ? because of course my work is always serving me as well as others .. its a two way street with everything nothing is truly selfish so I'd have to say no perhaps the good Bishop is unaware that while he is helping others he is in turn serving himself and his great purpose in this life.. and that my friends is what being selfish is all about I suppose
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Raymond
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It all depends how you look at the word 'selfish'. After all, what is selfish? Being interested in your own well-being? I don't have a problem with that.
Spiritually selfish? What does that mean???
But thinking about it, I suppose so-called 'new-age' ways of life are spiritually selfish - and rightly so.
New-age spirituality is based around finding your own spirituality and what spirituality means to YOU. Finding your own rights and wrongs, your own moral code.
Whereas the organised religions are just interested in spirituality for the masses.
The good people who turn up to church one a week to do a bit of singing and find their 'spirituality' is already laid on a plate for them.
So if finding your own truths and thinking for yourself is being spiritually selfish - then we should all do a hell of a lot more of it.
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evergreen
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yeah you said it so much better than me Raymond ... 
if selfish is doing what we are meant to o then yes i am selfish...
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david hobbs
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Well I suppose thinking about it then every action we take is wholly selfish.
How could it be otherwise, we have no experience of anything other than self.
Raymond hit upon something with his spirituality provided by the church for the masses.
That is control and the surrender of self to anothers world concepts.
Finding the spirituality of the self is freedom.
I am sure that free people will create a far better world for all of those selves to live in.
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Raymond
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| david hobbs wrote: | | Well I suppose thinking about it then every action we take is wholly selfish. |
It is. After all, theonly thing an individual can really control and influence are themselves - and sometimes even that is incredibly difficult.
Besides, the word 'selfish' is one of those words we have been conditioned to believe is wrong.
As children every time we do something that's independant or for the betterment of ourselves we're told "Don't be selfish!" and scolded for doing a bad thing.
Once again look at the natural world. Animals provide for their young - fair enough, but after that 100% of an animals' survival is dependancy on itself alone.
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