My Spiritual Search

[plix (imported)]

I've always felt a need for spirituality of some sort, but I can't seem to know where to find it.

I'm not entirely sure that organized religion is what I'm looking for. Then again, finding spirituality without organized religion is what is so difficult.

Most of my life I was a Christian. I never understood why or thought to ask any questions. It was mainly because I was raised that way. When I was 18 I became an atheist and stayed that way for about a year. I decided atheism wasn't working for me because of my need for spirituality, and ever since I've been in search of something that will satisfy my needs.

Ever since before I became an atheist, I have been interested in Paganism and am hoping Princess will someday be able to tell me more I consider all Pagan religions to be very beautiful and definitely worth taking a deeper look at.

I've also looked at Buddhism, Satanism, Unitarian Universalism, Universism, and some others, but I'm not sure which would be the right one for me, if any. Organized religion can be limiting, and I think I want to go beyond all spiritual limits possible.

[SplitDik (imported)]

I've always felt a need for spirituality of some sort, but I can't seem to know where to find it.

I'm not entirely sure that organized religion is what I'm looking for. Then again, finding spirituality without organized religion is what is so difficult.

Most of my life I was a Christian. I never understood why or thought to ask any questions. It was mainly because I was raised that way. When I was 18 I became an atheist and stayed that way for about a year. I decided atheism wasn't working for me because of my need for spirituality, and ever since I've been in search of something that will satisfy my needs.

Ever since before I became an atheist, I have been interested in Paganism and am hoping Princess will someday be able to tell me more I consider all Pagan religions to be very beautiful and definitely worth taking a deeper look at.

I've also looked at Buddhism, Satanism, Unitarian Universalism, Universism, and some others, but I'm not sure which would be the right one for me, if any. Organized religion can be limiting, and I think I want to go beyond all spiritual limits possible.

I highly suggest you get "365 Tao" by Ming-Dao Deng. It is a very relevant, easy to read, book about applying Taoist principles to modern life. It skips all the mystical alchemy stuff that makes the Taoist classics hard to read.

[Blaise (imported)]

Both Buddhism and Taoism offer interesting ways of understanding human experience that avoid many of the problems we encounter in the monotheistic religions. Both had early stages that seem devoid of the magical elements that entered later during the formation of these religions, elements that make them less attractive to many of us than what the earlier forms seemed to be. I have not sufficiently informed to recommend books about either religion.

[Patient (imported)]

It was mainly because I was raised that way.

There is a much wider range of thought and practice in Christianity than is likely to be found in any one church. In Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis presents a particularly thorough and lucid explanation of what most Christians are most likely to have believed throughout these past two millennia. You will probably find in it much that is familiar and much more that you've never suspected. I recommend it highly.

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[An Onymus (imported)]

The Taoist artist Wu Chen is credited with the observation, "Through a harmonious life, I have drifted into old age. What more could I have asked?" Perhaps there is something to be said, for simply taking things as they come, and not worrying about ultimate meanings. (I may not have gotten the translation exactly right.)

Chen, incidentally, was a gifted artist. I think, offhand, that the book Hills Beyond a River, has reproductions of some of his work. He actually painted as an avocation, and his profession was that of a diviner.