Spiritual becoming mundane

Putting together ones life with the modern world.
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Kenazis
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Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Kenazis »

My question to all of you is: what you think and have you experienced the spiritual life become "mundane" (i don't find better word)? I mean that the mystic vibe of new and dangerous arcane secrets are more like commonplace activity after all the many years in the field of occultism. Do you see this as good or bad or neutral? Or is this even possible?
"We live for the woods and the moon and the night"
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Heith
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Heith »

Interesting, and a hard question to answer in a satisfactory manner.

So far, I have found that there is always a new field of interest to look into; when I feel I understand a certain system somewhat, it is time to look into another. This of course is learning the mechanics, or almost like learning a language but it keeps me motivated and interested. I also find motivation in spending time with people who are on a similar path such as myself. I can't say with words how much those moments mean to me, and I feel so happy and blessed to know so many peculiar and brilliant individuals.

For me a difficulty is often to try to see and accept that even mundane things, which may seem very non-spiritual, are spiritually meaningful. This is the hardest practise for me personally, like going to work or tagging along when someone is shopping. It feels often a total waste of time. I am always yearning for a existence in solitude, in the wilderness, and aim to be able to do so one day; yet it feels in some ways that such a almost complete retreat from the world is a selfish act, but perhaps one must also become a hermit for a while in order to understand some things of themselves. My artistic visions or experiences in nature, I think, can never become mundane (/boring), as there is always such a strong element of astrally or simply, the subjective experience of holiness.

Of course one gets more and more accustomed to a practice that is repeated on a daily basis, and I think that my attitude and views are perfectly normal, until I talk to "normal" people. I find it very strange, the way they are content in their existence which to me would mean the very opposite. Overall I'd say that I'm rather fortunate in a sense that my work is spiritual most of the time, as my profession gives me a great personal freedom and flexibility, so I can do what I want.

Sorry by the way if my writing is unclear, I have a hard time concentrating today.
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Sebomai
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Sebomai »

Heith wrote:For me a difficulty is often to try to see and accept that even mundane things, which may seem very non-spiritual, are spiritually meaningful. This is the hardest practise for me personally, like going to work or tagging along when someone is shopping. It feels often a total waste of time.
This. This, this, this. I have found the spiritual capable of feeling mundane. A practice repeated over and over can end up feeling dry and bland when once it gave you a feeling of great sacredness. But the challenge for me is to find the spiritual in the mundane. In the SoA, and many other spiritual traditions, there really is no barrier between the holy and the profane. In a cosmos where all is infused with Spirit, even waiting in line to pay for groceries is a sacred and spiritual act, but how often do we see it as such? I know it is very hard for me.

Like Sor. Heith, if I see the spiritual becoming too mundane, I decide it is time to learn something new, spread my wings with new knowledge and practices. When the spiritual becomes stale, it is time for me to try something different. That doesn't mean at all that I abandon my old practices, I just seek a new dimension to my spiritual life to keep me always striving for something, never resting too long in one place.

Hope this helps!
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Nefastos
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Nefastos »

For me, the same things that makes my life constantly hellish to experience also makes it impossible the spiritual to became mundane, in meaning that it would lose something of its other-sidedness or mystic experience, its ability to be "something completely different". This is a blessing and a curse at the same time: I am always filled with wonder and sense of great awe; my nerves are constantly trembling, as they have been my whole adult life. Every gesture is a miracle, every moment a theophany. All is spirit, matter or mundane something I simply cannot believe in. They are like extremely thin veils streched over that spiritual explosion that is God(s).

I have thought much more of this lately, after discovering Kashmir Shaivisim, since it seems like the seeking of spanda (Shiva) I read about is to seek this same feeling I am living 24/7. Of this I am extremely thankful. Regrettably, it also makes everyday life a permanent lie, just a theatre. So I try to use it as a sacred symbolism, and as a dharma: possibility to do some spiritual work.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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RaktaZoci
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by RaktaZoci »

Kenazis wrote:what you think and have you experienced the spiritual life become "mundane" (i don't find better word)? I mean that the mystic vibe of new and dangerous arcane secrets are more like commonplace activity after all the many years in the field of occultism.
Personally, I feel quite the opposite, that the mundane has become spiritual. Or well, "spiritual" might be a slightly incorrect term here, but anyways "that which is from the Spirit". With "spirit" I mean the core essence which may be called the Absolute, but also by other names.

As we have spoken many times before, our occult path, one's own Great Work, should be something that takes place every given moment and is contained in all of our experience. So I see it so, that this mundane life we live and the world of matter in which we work is merely just a vehicle on our spiritual highway and it is for us to decide if we, by our actions and thoughts, decide to either have the gear on reverse or on one that strives forward momentum.
die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.
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Kenazis
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Kenazis »

RaktaZoci wrote:
Kenazis wrote:what you think and have you experienced the spiritual life become "mundane" (i don't find better word)? I mean that the mystic vibe of new and dangerous arcane secrets are more like commonplace activity after all the many years in the field of occultism.
Personally, I feel quite the opposite, that the mundane has become spiritual. Or well, "spiritual" might be a slightly incorrect term here, but anyways "that which is from the Spirit". With "spirit" I mean the core essence which may be called the Absolute, but also by other names.

As we have spoken many times before, our occult path, one's own Great Work, should be something that takes place every given moment and is contained in all of our experience. So I see it so, that this mundane life we live and the world of matter in which we work is merely just a vehicle on our spiritual highway and it is for us to decide if we, by our actions and thoughts, decide to either have the gear on reverse or on one that strives forward momentum.
No opposing thought for this, but what I in have mind was that so called Spiritual or occult view becomes dominant and more normal than "mundane" view. Very hard to put on words (on the english side). Like when you are just starting your occult path and these occult studies and experiences are more like an islands on the land of "normal and profane". Eventually you live more and more in this "magical land". Then some day you understand that this earlier "normal profane word" has become illusionary islands and the "magical alien islands" have become the new normal.
"We live for the woods and the moon and the night"
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Nefastos
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Nefastos »

Kenazis wrote:Like when you are just starting your occult path and these occult studies and experiences are more like an islands on the land of "normal and profane". Eventually you live more and more in this "magical land". Then some day you understand that this earlier "normal profane word" has become illusionary islands and the "magical alien islands" have become the new normal.


I think it is one of the important abilities of the occultist to be able to always shift one's perspective to see the magic in different situations, not losing one's interest in seeming attainments. (This "losing one's interest in awe" seems to be the thing that is meant when talking of negative pride. In my opinion, it has almost nothing to do with the sacred Luciferian pride, being its opposite.) For actually we are all just fumbling infants here, and even the adepts know how partial is their knowledge of the whole stupendous cosmos. What is standard and what is not is always a matter of perspective, there's nothing objective or "true" in the feeling of something being commonplace.

I remember keenly - and with horror - the time when I was still a teenager who had not found the occult doctrines in the outside world. It was a pre-internet world in a small town of a small country, world being very unlike it is now, 25 years later, so it was hard to find any information about occult philosophy. I just knew there was this "real" world, both in spirit and living (as symbols, ways of life & cetera) in this world of ours, but I had no names for it, and I had no clue where I could found it. I felt that I was in a wrong body, wrong time: the world everyone seemed to think as normal and standard was abhorring, weird and nightmarish to me: I felt that I was an elder gentleman living in a certain kind of study with books, pictograms on the walls, &c. I couldn't understand how or why I must be inside this ignorant child, in a time & culture that was even more ignorant & annoying, since it didn't even seem to notice how it didn't know anything.

Keeping in awe, that trembling feeling of mystery, is also a skill. One must consciously practice to keep oneself from falling asleep to everyday life, until it becomes an intense habit. For there is nothing standard in the world, there is only temporal paralysis of one's soul's ability to be in awe, to be awake in this dream.

This is a very important topic.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
Sothoth
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Re: Spiritual becoming mundane

Post by Sothoth »

I would not so much underline the difference between "spiritual" and "mundane" world. But it is important to keep your mind focused to the "spiritual center point" (laya) at every moment from which everything happens. By trying constantly find this center point from this profane world prevents you falling to the ocean of everyday profane life. Spiritual and mundane are the same, but what matters is the perspective you see the world and the decisions you make, those are different. Those decisions can be either "mundane" or "spiritual", another leading to confusion and another gradually towards enlightenment. So one should try to find the magic in one's everyday life, kinda like Nefastos said.

To the original question. For me personally it would be hard for the spiritual to become mundane in the way Kenazis described. Those occult secrets are so deep, that I think this life isn't enough to find every meaning behind them. So there will be always new secrets and gates to open in this endless cosmos.
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