How Spiritual Are You?
1. I often feel so connected to the people around me that it is like there is no separation between us. True False
2. I often do things to help protect animals and plants from extinction. True False
3. I am fascinated by the many things in life that cannot be scientifically explained. True False
4. Often I have unexpected flashes of insight or understanding while relaxing. True False
5. I sometimes feel so connected to nature that everything seems to be part of one living organism. True False
6. I seem to have a "sixth sense" that sometimes allows me to know what is going to happen. True False
7. Sometimes I have felt like I was part of something with no limits or boundaries in time and space. True False
8. I am often called "absent-minded" because I get so wrapped up in what I am doing that I lose track of everything else. True False
9. I often feel a strong sense of unity with all the things around me. True False
10. Even after thinking about something a long time, I have learned to trust my feelings more than my logical reasons. True False
11. I often feel a strong spiritual or emotional connection with all the people around me. True False
12. Often when I am concentrating on something, I lose awareness of the passage of time. True False
13. I have made real personal sacrifices in order to make the world a better place, like trying to prevent war, poverty and injustice. True False
14. I have had experiences that made my role in life so clear to me that I felt very happy and excited. True False
15. I believe that I have experienced extrasensory perception. True False
16. I have had moments of great joy in which I suddenly had a clear, deep feeling of oneness with all that exists. True False
17. Often when I look at an ordinary thing, something wonderful happens. I get the feeling that I am seeing it fresh for the first time. True False
18. I love the blooming of flowers in the spring as much as seeing an old friend again. True False
19. It often seems to other people like I am in another world because I am so completely unaware of things going on around me. True False
20. I believe that miracles happen. True False
SCORING: Give yourself one point for each TRUE answer and 0 points for each FALSE answer. 14 and above = highly spiritual, a real mystic; 12-13 = spiritually aware, easily lost in the moment; 8-11 = spiritually average; could develop more spiritual life if desired; 6-7 = a practical empiricist lacking self-transcendence; 1-5 = highly skeptical, resistant to developing spiritual awareness
- Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
No. 21 I often feel that what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too. true false
No. 22 The mother of all criterion: I often feel that I don't know what I am thinking when I am thinking. true false
If your answer to No. 22 is in the positive then you are as spiritual as the Dalai Lama. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
With a score of 19+2, I am highly spiritual, a real mystic and as spiritual as the Dalai Lama. Then what is next, mine and yours?
. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
Ha ha.
Can a person embrace empirical ideas and spiritual ideas at the same time? True False
Can he/she be a non-religious person yet still be spiritual? True False
- Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
yes, and yes, of course. (guess I am still in the spectrum.) - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
Since you are highly spiritual, material possessions must be real burden and pain for you. I kindly offer to assist in your ascendancy to heaven and relieve your burden and pain by taking over your possessions starting from wire transfer of bank balance from yours to mine. ;)
rzp wrote:
With a score of 19+2, I am highly spiritual, a real mystic and as spiritual as the Dalai Lama. Then what is next, mine and yours?
. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
touche wrote:
Since you are highly spiritual, material possessions must be real burden and pain for you.
不会吧。For a highly spiritual person, nothing can be real burden and painful. Material possessions can be great joy too.
I love material possessions as much as the blooming of flowers in the spring, or seeing an old friend again. True False
- posted on 09/09/2008
You did not get enough from da Lai's account?!
touche wrote:
Since you are highly spiritual, material possessions must be real burden and pain for you. I kindly offer to assist in your ascendancy to heaven and relieve your burden and pain by taking over your possessions starting from wire transfer of bank balance from yours to mine. ;)
rzp wrote:
With a score of 19+2, I am highly spiritual, a real mystic and as spiritual as the Dalai Lama. Then what is next, mine and yours?
I agree with 阿姗.
阿姗 wrote:
touche wrote:不会吧。For a highly spiritual person, nothing can be real burden and painful. Material possessions can be great joy too.
Since you are highly spiritual, material possessions must be real burden and pain for you.
I love material possessions as much as the blooming of flowers in the spring, or seeing an old friend again. True False
. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
I apologize for not being spiritual enough. I promise to raise my spirituality by consuming large quantity of spirit. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/09/2008
My score are low,
RZPmm , I demand a definition of Spiritual mind. It seems to me more like " How much psychic power you have?" - posted on 09/09/2008
Caoye, I am not qualified to give you the definition. But let me try to rephase your question first, then answer those from my point of view -- just for fun:
1. Is a person who has spiritual mind spiritual?
everyone will be able to find themselves in a spiritual state of mind sometimes. a person who is in spiritual mind all the time will not live long in the physical realm for long. rational mind is also needed.
2. Does a spiritual person must have a spiritual mind?
yes, but there is a fine thin line between being spiritual and insanity......
3. Does a spiritual person has more psychic power?
Everyone has psychic power, but one has to accept first, that -- psychic power -- is part of the oneness with all that exists. A more awaken person will most likely unlock more psychic power. Spiritual mind is not psychic power.
As a physician, one is needed to be more rational on the job:) unless you are following some kinds of calling from your heart or some omens and also willing to deal with the burden of legal attack, like the guy banging long nail into patient's head to treat migrant heahache.
caoye wrote:
My score are low,
RZPmm , I demand a definition of Spiritual mind. It seems to me more like " How much psychic power you have?" - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/10/2008
touche wrote:
No. 21 I often feel that what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too. true false
I'm sure this one is universally shared by all corrupted communist officials. - posted on 09/10/2008
That's a good point. Spirituality is not necessarily enriched by austerity nor is it negated by worldly belongings.
阿姗 wrote:
touche wrote:不会吧。For a highly spiritual person, nothing can be real burden and painful. Material possessions can be great joy too.
Since you are highly spiritual, material possessions must be real burden and pain for you.
I love material possessions as much as the blooming of flowers in the spring, or seeing an old friend again. True False
- Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/10/2008
Take some spirit pills? Sounds like a plan. "Yes, we can." is a successful pill in the market. Yes we can. :) -- why not?
touche wrote:
I apologize for not being spiritual enough. I promise to raise my spirituality by consuming large quantity of spirit. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/10/2008
I've been joking all along. Spirit means alcohol too. You can't always tell that one is spiritual or drunk or both. ;)
rzp wrote:
Take some spirit pills? Sounds like a plan. "Yes, we can." is a successful pill in the market. Yes we can. :) -- why not?
touche wrote:
I apologize for not being spiritual enough. I promise to raise my spirituality by consuming large quantity of spirit. - posted on 09/10/2008
Seriously, on the pure physiological level (as opposed to the intellectual level), aren't they all the same? Except that alcohol and drugs have more side effects. But are they generating the same chemicals, stimulating the same brain cells? Making us happy the same way physiologically? (I wouldn't know, I have none of these experiences)
touche wrote:
I've been joking all along. Spirit means alcohol too. You can't always tell that one is spiritual or drunk or both. ;) - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/10/2008
how funny, i found the most spiritual ones are in the mental hospital according to this test score. I should let them try this test, good idea? - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/10/2008
Perhaps many in mental hospitals are spiritual, many movies suggested the same exact point already. However, the most spiritual ones are there? I doublt that.
maya wrote:
how funny, i found the most spiritual ones are in the mental hospital according to this test score. I should let them try this test, good idea? - posted on 09/10/2008
you just don't get it! so said spiritual people. ;)
touche wrote:
I've been joking all along. Spirit means alcohol too. You can't always tell that one is spiritual or drunk or both. ;)
rzp wrote:
Take some spirit pills? Sounds like a plan. "Yes, we can." is a successful pill in the market. Yes we can. :) -- why not?
touche wrote:
I apologize for not being spiritual enough. I promise to raise my spirituality by consuming large quantity of spirit. - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/10/2008
Haha, I even don't worry whether I am spiritual or not, I guess I am not spiritual at all.
I thought the most effective spiritual pill on the market now is "the will of God" :-) - posted on 09/10/2008
Hehe, a conversation between chicken and duck. :)
LM wrote:
you just don't get it! so said spiritual people. ;)
touche wrote:
I've been joking all along. Spirit means alcohol too. You can't always tell that one is spiritual or drunk or both. ;)
rzp wrote:
Take some spirit pills? Sounds like a plan. "Yes, we can." is a successful pill in the market. Yes we can. :) -- why not?
touche wrote:
I apologize for not being spiritual enough. I promise to raise my spirituality by consuming large quantity of spirit. - posted on 09/10/2008
The late "Father of LSD" Albert Hofmann found that taking LSD mimics the divine experience he obtained once in childhood in a spring garden. He believed LSD, if properly used, could help people with their spiritual life, of course, without it, it is still possible, as he advised them to "Go to the meadow, go to the garden, go to the woods, open your eyes!"
Susan wrote:
Seriously, on the pure physiological level (as opposed to the intellectual level), aren't they all the same? Except that alcohol and drugs have more side effects. But are they generating the same chemicals, stimulating the same brain cells? Making us happy the same way physiologically? (I wouldn't know, I have none of these experiences)
touche wrote:
I've been joking all along. Spirit means alcohol too. You can't always tell that one is spiritual or drunk or both. ;) - posted on 09/10/2008
Susan wrote:
Seriously, on the pure physiological level (as opposed to the intellectual level), aren't they all the same? Except that alcohol and drugs have more side effects. But are they generating the same chemicals, stimulating the same brain cells? Making us happy the same way physiologically? (I wouldn't know, I have none of these experiences)
The difference between drug-induced "divine experience" and the "real" one is that the former is drug-dependent, and once the drug (or spirit) wears off, the experience is gone. The spiritual experience may last a long time, and if one knows how, one can call back the experience at will (for example, by praying, meditating, going to the meadow/garden/woods). This needs a lot of practice. That's why there are people who live in places like monasteries and temples.
rzp wrote:
Perhaps many in mental hospitals are spiritual, many movies suggested the same exact point already. However, the most spiritual ones are there? I doublt that.
maya wrote:
how funny, i found the most spiritual ones are in the mental hospital according to this test score. I should let them try this test, good idea?
Perhaps many in mental hospitals are spiritual, but they do not know how to harness their spiritual power to make it work for them. The most spiritual ones are among us, and we will recognize them when we are ready.
- Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/12/2008
Thanks RZP, YC and Ah'Shan for providing valuable insights (and touche for splashing around). To summarize my brief glimpse into this vast, unexplored territory, I'd like to use Tagore's words:
Once we dreamt that we were strangers.
We wake up to find that we were dear to each other. - posted on 09/12/2008
阿姗 wrote:
The difference between drug-induced "divine experience" and the "real" one is that the former is drug-dependent, and once the drug (or spirit) wears off, the experience is gone. The spiritual experience may last a long time, and if one knows how, one can call back the experience at will (for example, praying, meditating, going to the meadow/garden/woods). This needs a lot of practice. That's why there are people who live in places like monasteries and temples.
while you say the former is drug-dependent, and will wear off without the drug, isn't it the same for your latter, which is also pray/meditation/goingtomeadow/garden/woods-dependent? If you don't do any of that, won't it also wear out just the same?
Isn't it just the same (or similar) mental status induced by different stimuli?
sorry for this, as you may have guessed, my score is shamefully low. :-( - posted on 09/12/2008
gz wrote:
while you say the former is drug-dependent, and will wear off without the drug, isn't it the same for your latter, which is also pray/meditation/goingtomeadow/garden/woods-dependent? If you don't do any of that, won't it also wear out just the same?
Isn't it just the same (or similar) mental status induced by different stimuli?
其实这个问题我也问过我老师。我前面说的是我自己的理解。刚才把我跟老师的对话找出来,读了一遍,发现我还是有误解。GZ 你用反问来说的道理可能是对的。我曾经也把其它非药物的途径看做一种药物。对我来说,跟合适的人对话,就是我的药物:"for me, perhaps the high state is conversation-induced, rather than drug- or meditation- induced. Yes, there are many ways to do this (no two operators are the same) and again, everyone picks whichever works for him/her."。我都不记得四年前我写过这样的话了。:(
Anyway, I believe that if one stays in the high state for long enough time and never returns, then one is practically out of this world. At this point, some will choose to leave this physical world altogether, while others will choose to come back into the world and be a guide. That's what Buddha chooses to do.
不用说 sorry,大家都在学习过程中。只是我觉得你现在还是在外面看这个问题。
下面是我和老师的对话,放在这里做参考:
F suspected that I took acid and had a trip. S thought I ate something strange. But all I did was waking up one morning and finding myself There.
This indeed could have been the shortcut to somewhat similar experiences. However, you are the best proof that no drugs are needed to *get There*. There is nothing wrong with them at all -- except that they are illegal: Since the use of mind-altering substances puts us even more under the sway of our slavemasters, it is best to be avoided. Otherwise, they’d be a path like another, allowing to shake the belief in an absolutely solid and stolid physical “reality”.
Actually, studying Physics, at some level, could easily have the same effect than psychotropic substances, since contemporary physics definitely questions lots of common assumptions…
If that drug induced ecstasy is the type of things that I will end up with (without drug use), or if in the eyes of an onlooker I am only seeking that kind of "altered state", then something is wrong with my pursuit somewhere.
Nono. You are going back to your old error, judging the world and your own experience through the eyes of the onlookers, and by the yardsticks they provide. It’s not the way it works.
The only onlookers who know more than you do are the Awakened ones. Once you yourself are Awakened, you can still use “colleagues” as “direction pointers”, or even as crutches, if you wish, and *that* is perfectly legitimate. But they themselves no more really “know” that much more than you do yourself. As for the “average person” type of onlooker, they no more have any claims left to any genuine rights to be normative about *your* experiences.
[On the other hand, also remember that looking at “me” vs “them” is just another trick of Maya. Ultimately, you, me, them, Buddha, the Pope and even Saddam and Dubya, we are all one. (I know it can be hard to believe, when you push it *that* far… ;) But it’s nonetheless true. Or, if you prefer, be as proud as makes you *feel really good* about all you accomplished, but always remember that ultimately, a worm or a star, there is no difference.
In other words, what *you* got was the genuine experience. What your friends most probably got was the drug-induced ersatz experience. So, if anyone is "wrong" in this matter, it's not you.
Except that personally, I don't think anyone is wrong here. It does not matter how one gets *There*, as long as There you get. Except that they seem a bit arrogant in judging *your* experience by *their* yardsticks. Even if honestly, yes, there are similarities. But how do they know how you got there? Who knows, if not your Self?
注:我那个老师是他自封的。本来我们只是网友,他说要做我的主人(master)。几年后,他在我求索的路上给我很大帮助,我只好甘心称他为大师(master)。 - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/12/2008
谢谢阿姗认真作答。我确实还在外边,几乎不知道什么叫 high. 上花园肯定 high 不了。那次在珠峰底下倒是 high 过一会,后来离开了也就 wear off 了。
不过我相信,不管用什么手段获得 high 的感觉,这种状态都不可能持续太久。脑细胞的生理使然,就象审美疲劳,就象幸福的感觉,都无非是一种相对的感觉,和对时间的导数成正比。
再诚心请教一下,不用药物,怎样才能最简易可靠的 high 一把?:-) - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/12/2008
我的分数也不象我想像的那么高,大概是因为我不用药物,不会祷告,不会凝思(太不专心),去大自然看到好的就想照相,最近又在学 succulent gardening ,看花园是没戏了。我熟悉的唯一的途径--与人对话--很久也没有过了。看书的时候,我也能 high 起来,但是我的心不够定,看过就丢了,不象以前,一边看,一边作笔记,认真和作者对话、印证。
- Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/12/2008
忽然感到和阿姗的对话好像真让我亥了一下! :-) - posted on 09/12/2008
gz wrote:
不过我相信,不管用什么手段获得 high 的感觉,这种状态都不可能持续太久。脑细胞的生理使然,就象审美疲劳,就象幸福的感觉,都无非是一种相对的感觉,和对时间的导数成正比。
也许你说的是对的,high 的状态不能太持久。也许因为这样,那些自焚而去的僧人,或者是审美疲劳了,或者是不能忍受多次从高处掉下来。:) 这个我可真是瞎说了。
再诚心请教一下,不用药物,怎样才能最简易可靠的 high 一把?:-)
呃,你不是很懂当代物理的吗?老师说: studying Physics, at some level, could easily have the same effect than psychotropic substances, since contemporary physics definitely questions lots of common assumptions…
祷告啦,冥想啦,接触自然啦,也不是次次灵的。我自己来说,对话和思考是比较可靠的办法。
其实我个人的目标不是保持 high,因为我在低处的时候,不是常常想上高,有时觉得那么高,很费精神的。但偶尔上去了,就很开心(this word is too weak),不但生活上的各种困难全部能迎刃而解,而且世上的所有问题我都有答案。所以人在高处还是好的,站的高,望的远嘛。以后有机会也要去珠峰。 - Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/12/2008
My only high experiences were either sex-induced or medicine-induced.
By the way, I don't think real spiritual people talk much, let alone teach. They are quiet and patient seekers. - posted on 09/12/2008
touche wrote:
By the way, I don't think real spiritual people talk much, let alone teach. They are quiet and patient seekers.
I guess I was only thinking about the likes of Jesus and Buddha as teachers. Of course one has to follow one's own callings, and not everyone is called to be a spiritual teacher. But I believe that a genuinely awakened person is more likely to be a guide to other fellow seekers in one way or another, as it is only natural to want to share and help.
It seems that rzp is a real spiritual person, and while she is quiet and patient, she is always ready to share and offer help to those who need it.
- Re: How Spiritual Are You? (ZT from Time magazine)posted on 09/12/2008
呃,你不是很懂当代物理的吗?老师说: studying Physics, at some level, could easily have the same effect than psychotropic substances, since contemporary physics definitely questions lots of common assumptions…
是低。最近那个对撞机就是个例子。一想到全世界的人都一起进黑洞,还真让人有点亥。:-)
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