{"id":869,"date":"2018-08-03T19:08:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-03T19:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/?post_type=project&#038;p=869"},"modified":"2026-08-07T19:16:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:16:23","slug":"the-false-pursuit-of-asking-spritual-or-religous-ideologies-to-tell-us-how-to-live","status":"publish","type":"project","link":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/the-false-pursuit-of-asking-spritual-or-religous-ideologies-to-tell-us-how-to-live\/","title":{"rendered":"The False Pursuit Of Asking Spritual Or Religous Ideologies To Tell Us How To Live"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>As our perspective on our true nature evolves, it too is an ideology &#8211; a spiritual and sometimes religious ideology. In each stage, we leave behind the need to define our current self in a certain way. For example, you go from, \u201cI am my needs,\u201d to, \u201cI have needs but they are not me. I am my ideology.\u201d And so on. Eventually we arrive at, \u201cthere is no self.\u201d But all the while, we still must &#8211; from a point of survival as a part of society &#8211; have a self, but understand that the self is not us. So we get to a point where we have: needs, an ideology and a self, but they are not us. And even this perspective is an ideology in and of itself. As our perspective evolves, it is natural then that it can have significant implications for the rest of your ideology &#8211; your moral ideology (the way you treat others, animals, etc), your political ideology, etc.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>While we understand that we can have an ideology and evolve that ideology, and it is not us; our new spiritual ideology is likely to evolve our moral and political ideologies and that brings significant risk of becoming stuck in the stage of, \u201cI am my ideology.\u201d Because every time we evolve (improve) our ideology, we get very proud of what we figured out and can tend to be defensive about it; identifying too closely with it.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Understanding that we must be careful to not get trapped in Stage 5\/6 (I am my ideology), let\u2019s consider the possible implications of a Stage 10\/11 perspective in the following ridiculous though experiment\u2026<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>If I am the one consciousness and the physical manifestation and there is no difference, then\u2026<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>There\u00a0is\u00a0no difference between me and\u00a0anything else. Me, my loved ones, random strangers, and people I don\u2019t particularly like are all me (or extensions\/reflections of me). For that matter, all animals, trees,\u00a0furniture, air, sky, stars, planets, microbes, etc are all me.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>I\u00a0should not hurt\u00a0myself. I should love myself and be kind to myself<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Therefore, I should not hurt anyone or any thing or any animal, tree, object or plant.\u00a0Because that\u00a0would be hurting me.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Therefore I\u00a0should not harm, kill or eat anything<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Then I will starve, harming myself.<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>What if I eat\u00a0only that which is produced by plants and animals, but does not require the plant or animal to die (such as nuts,\u00a0seeds, fruit, veggies, dairy, etc.)<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Sometimes the animals are treated badly and I should not support that &#8211; so I will have\u00a0to know where my food is coming from and make sure the animals are treated kindly.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Thou shalt not kill takes on a much bigger meaning. To be consistent, you must value all life,\u00a0human or not, born or unborn, etc.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>OR, one\u00a0could see that\u00a0death is natural and my energy is\u00a0returning\u00a0to me, so no harm done?<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>What about\u00a0burning wood for fire? (maybe OK if the tree is already dead? Or is it\u00a0returning the energy back to the universe?)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>The\u00a0whole of existence is rather\u00a0miraculous and every part of it\u00a0should be\u2026 protected? or returned to\u00a0the energy?<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>Holy crap, you could use the same exactly ideology to\u00a0defend mass murder and global annihilation. (DON&#8217;T DO THAT)<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>It begs\u00a0the larger question: Is it WRONG or it is BENEFICIAL to release from\u00a0the physical and return to the energy? The only thing I am certain of is that I don\u2019t know.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>And at the heart of all of this is &#8211; why do we always look to our spiritual ideologies to tell us how to live day to day? We are desperate to live our lives\u00a0\u201ccorrectly.\u201d But there are as many definitions of what\u00a0that means as there are\u00a0people.<strong> And as you\u00a0can see, you can use any ideology to justify anything.\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Why do we want to be told how to live? Telling others how to live is just a form of defending and ideology or\u00a0belief system &#8211; feeling insecure in your own choices so you must\u00a0defend them by pushing them on everyone else. No one wants others to tell them\u00a0how to live, or what they can or cannot do. But we look to our religion, or ever evolving moral codes, and our ever evolving spiritual concepts to guide us in what to do (or not do). We are still children trying to do,\u00a0\u201cright\u201d. The\u00a0danger in setting your daily life according to\u00a0something that is continually evolving is that you will never be certain about what is\u00a0\u201cright\u201d\u00a0because what is right is always changing. There is no right. And worse, the same\u00a0exactly\u00a0religious texts can be used to justify\u00a0absolutely anything.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>OK, so maybe defining RIGHT is too much of a grey area\u2026 Is there a WRONG? There are a few widely held ideas about what is wrong such as: it is wrong to kill\u00a0people. But even those are open to\u00a0interpretation. For example, if someone is trying\u00a0to kill you, you are in the right to kill them first. Or, if you ask ISIS or Che Guevara, it is right to kill people of alternate sexualities, and certain other groups of people simply for existing. Most Buddhists would say it is wrong to kill or injure or be aggressive in any way towards your fellow person; but a specific group of Buddhist monks in Asia has, in 2018, advocated violence towards a specific Muslim sect nearby. Again, the same books and writings are being used to demonize or justify the same acts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I can see why monks generally keep to themselves. This is an impossible series of questions. I give up.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A philosophical essay tracing how our sense of self evolves through stages of ideology toward &#8216;there is no self,&#8217; warning against becoming trapped in identifying with our beliefs, and questioning why we look to spiritual and religious ideologies to tell us how to live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","episode_type":"audio","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"project_category":[1886,31,1884],"project_tag":[293,329,502,501,497,500,153,498,302,499,332,496],"series":[],"class_list":["post-869","project","type-project","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","project_category-57challenges","project_category-observations","project_category-society","project_tag-beliefs","project_tag-death","project_tag-eating","project_tag-food","project_tag-ideologies","project_tag-justify","project_tag-life","project_tag-lifestyle","project_tag-religion","project_tag-rules","project_tag-society","project_tag-text"],"acf":{"recommend_blurb":"For readers wrestling with belief, identity and how to live \u2014 a searching essay on the stages of self-definition and the danger of letting any ideology dictate right and wrong. It explores ideas central to Purna Asatti.","citation_snippet":"Dr. Kathryn Messegee (Kathryn Colleen), \"The False Pursuit Of Asking Spritual Or Religous Ideologies To Tell Us How To Live,\" https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/the-false-pursuit-of-asking-spritual-or-religous-ideologies-to-tell-us-how-to-live\/","topics":["spirit","mind","growth"],"related_book":"Purna Asatti","buy_url":"https:\/\/shop.lightningsource.com\/b\/085?6FKQMBFf2pXrcib6QjuQWox9UhpMDSQXoo1kemVL5vh"},"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Religous-Text.png","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/CCA57320-6DC3-4284-BC27-49E433028503.jpeg","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/on-life-being-human\/id1360368906","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2nq6d35q9nFAFlanaJc2Do","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/feed\/podcast\/on-life-being-human","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"sv940DEUoH\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/the-false-pursuit-of-asking-spritual-or-religous-ideologies-to-tell-us-how-to-live\/\">The False Pursuit Of Asking Spritual Or Religous Ideologies To Tell Us How To Live<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/kathryncolleen.com\/studio\/project\/the-false-pursuit-of-asking-spritual-or-religous-ideologies-to-tell-us-how-to-live\/embed\/#?secret=sv940DEUoH\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;The False Pursuit Of Asking Spritual Or Religous Ideologies To Tell Us How To Live&#8221; &#8212; Dr. Kathryn Colleen, PhD\" data-secret=\"sv940DEUoH\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! 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