Spiritual Leanings ... From all faiths.

[mariamma]

This is a hard lesson for me to learn and re-learn. I admit I am a Prima Donna. I'm spoiled and have wants and desires. All wants, craving, MUST HAVE feeling is related to how one runs dopamine. And dopamine is ... intense and mean. There is no other way of seeing it.
James Holmes out in Colorado...his dopamine has spiked, probably with testosterone and he spiraled into a T, D, violent and euphoric state. Now he's looking blank (a flat affect is a sign of lack of dopamine, former meth-users have this same look) according to the media. People are wondering how he can be so emotionless (they are giving him serotonin-increasing meds, S and D work at inverse proportion to each other)
The hoarding, the serving 2 masters (usually in secret), the fear-induced clutching for possessions, goods, the best foods, etc......it's dopamine related. I want what I want because I have the delusion that I am entitled to whatever I want.
Serotonin engenders well-being and happiness. You feel what you need (I need air. I need water, I need healthy foods and not really much more.). No hoarding because there's no fear-based clutching onto possessions. The focus is away from ego protection, status protection, "saving face", escalating desires, etc. Because the fallacy of dopamine is that having our wants and desires met will make us happy. This is far from true. Dopamine will only make us crave more. There is no end to the bottomless pit of want/desire.

Originally Posted by Glenn

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on Earth where moth and rust decay and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for for yourselves your treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal..For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

"No one can serve two masters, for either she/he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about what you will eat and drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is life not more than food and the body more than clothes?"

"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet God feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"

"Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to your stature? So why worry about clothing? Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as fine as one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will not God much more clothe you, oh you of little faith?

"Therefore, do not worry, saying: "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For after all these things the gentiles seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first God, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about it's own things. Sufficient for the day is it's own trouble."