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I am an Indian who believed in God and followed Hinduism.

Later, I went to college and became enlightened and ruled out the idea of third party creation or the existence of a creator. That said, during the time I believed in God, when I entered the temples I had a different feeling (I can't explain it, but it felt good) by hearing the chanting of mantras, the glow of lamps, the smoked smell of camphor, etc.

I think this is a spiritual feeling.

As I have lived my childhood as a theist and later as an atheist I can't differentiate if the spiritual feeling is because of childhood memories or is genetically embedded.

I ask this question to understand how people like OSHO and thousands of his variants in India could glue millions of followers without giving any material things.

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Arun Killu
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  • Why is this put on hold, this is not about myself. Millions of people irrespective of faith. If happiness is an emotion, sadness is also emotion then what is spiritual feeling what are it's binding with evolution. This has to be discussed – Arun Killu Jul 29 '19 at 17:58
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    Perhaps, you’d better ask this question in the philosophy forum. Anyway, from the neuroscientific point of view, your answer can be shortly answered like this: every feeling (including spiritual feeling), every emotion, every thought, and every other activity of the mind are the results of neural processes. Evident is that all of these mental activities (including spiritual feeling) are altered, stopped, or destroyed permanently by anything that affect the involved neural processes, such as sedatives/psychotropic drugs, head injury, encephalitis, and dementing diseases. – user287279 Jul 30 '19 at 05:14
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    But, where did the believing in god/gods, in spirits, in supernatural power, etc. come from? From the psychological point of views, IMO, these beliefs came from the psychological need of ancient people to explain natural phenomena that they encountered. Without the current scientific knowledge, it is natural that ancient people invented something to account for these phenomena. – user287279 Jul 30 '19 at 05:16
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    And, IMO, that  OSHO and thousands of his variant in India could glue millions of followers without giving any material things is because they had charismatic abilities. Other people have these charismatic abilities too, such as some other religious leaders, some cult leaders, some national leaders, and some politicians. Finally, please understand that I've tried to give you neuroscientific and psychologic answers frankly, and I hope that they did not insult your feelings and beliefs. – user287279 Jul 30 '19 at 05:24
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    Related: How to measure the correlation between "spirituality" and the susceptibility to false memories? – Ooker Aug 01 '19 at 04:24
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    This might be of interest: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14594742 – monocell Aug 03 '19 at 13:07
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    Meta discussion: Are questions about cognitive aspect of spirituality on-topic? – Ooker Aug 18 '19 at 08:13
  • Also If restructuring question's body can set a new expectation on the readers, and thus making it clearer to be on-topic, should this be done? – Ooker Aug 24 '19 at 17:10
  • To say that ‘spiritual feeling’ equates with ‘fear of the unknown’ tells you all you need to know about the moderators on this board who really seem to love the sound of their own whistle. – Nick H Aug 26 '19 at 16:06
  • @NickH 'praise or fear of the unknown' is a 'spiritual feeling' and as a result, likely, the answer on the duplicate post was relevant. Regardless, As can be seen in the discussion surrounding this post, putting the question on hold as duplicate is likely the best outcome. I don't see how the latter part of your comment is relevant. If you keep trolling/posting ad hominem attacks like this, you will get suspended. Try to stick to constructive comments, please. – Steven Jeuris Aug 26 '19 at 16:28
  • It would help if you could follow the guidelines yourself. For example, you say that fear IS a spiritual feeling, yet fail to reference your source. Here’s my source for why it is not and why it is a nonconscious, primal feeling: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2014/february/understanding-fear-means-correctly-defining-fear-itself-ledoux-concludes-.html – Nick H Aug 26 '19 at 16:49
  • The impression I get is that if a comment challenges a Moderator’s world view or opinion, you take refuge in throwing the rule book, down voting or other defensive and frankly negative behaviour, and then when the person defends their point of view resort to further threats (like calling it trolling). But it’s ok if the moderators state their own opinions or make arbitrary judgements that contradict the guidelines they demand of non-moderators. Is this really healthy discussion? – Nick H Aug 26 '19 at 16:54
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    @NickH - The other mods on this site are about the most neutral and fair people I've come across. You shouldn't take critiques too personally. The mods are only trying to keep this site up to standards and they are quite frankly doing a pretty good job as we have just graduated to being a full site! – AliceD Aug 26 '19 at 17:20
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    @NickH Link me to one comment/post where I closed down a discussion, supposedly because it does not align with my viewpoint. It can be hard in discussions to separate feedback on one point from the other. I welcome your constructive feedback, e.g., pointing out that 'fear of the unknown' is not the same as spirituality (is praise of the unknown, though?). I do not welcome comments such as "who really seem to love the sound of their own whistle" which is what I called trolling, and is exactly our job to moderate. No, this is not healthy discussion, mostly due to ad hominem attacks. – Steven Jeuris Aug 26 '19 at 17:28
  • @StevenJeuris it seems that we have a legit answer for this question. Together with the objection that "spirituality" ≠ "fear of the unknown" (which I agree with), do you think this question is worth to be reopened? // (On the other hand, I'm afraid that it will be perceived as the answer.) – Ooker Sep 11 '19 at 18:18
  • @Ooker I still feel such an answer could be posted on the question marked as duplicate. If you read the whole question text, there is no real reason why Always Confused's answer wouldn't apply. That question showed sufficient initial research and is not about the one particular individual. Therefore, it is better and preferred over this one. But if you feel this question is different, you can edit it to eliminate the concerns raised in comments and on Meta. Or, you could simply post your own. – Steven Jeuris Sep 12 '19 at 09:02
  • @StevenJeuris I honestly feel that it's vividly crystal clear that this question is clear and on-topic and not a duplicate of that one. The concern of others raised on the meta makes me confused, because I already address that and they still don't see it – Ooker Sep 12 '19 at 09:51
  • @Ooker, could you quote the part which is unclear? Maybe in chat ... :) – Steven Jeuris Sep 12 '19 at 10:42

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