Thank you sisters for holding this space in love and light. I'm totally with you on that. Its such a nurturing, supportive space which, as I said before, is rare IME. I value it a great deal.
I admire those of you answering questions here and on other threads. I admire your clarity ,patience and willingness to engage. It's been beautifully and eloquently done.
It's confirmed to me that part of the beauty of this path for me is it's lack of connection to a specific belief system/religion with it's set rules, expectations of behaviour and hierarchy. I don't want that. It's damaged and hurt me in the past. As I'm sure others can relate to, this can take a long time to get away from because, as with anything/one who is able to exert power over you- part of that process is to make you believe that you are the problem or bad in some way. That only some external factor or force can 'save' you. I, personally have found this incredibly damaging and disempowering. Talk about 'fingers burnt', my experience of organised religion felt like it 'burnt' or harmed me at a deep soul level.
I don't want anything to do with that or indeed to have to explain myself, justify myself or prove that my practices are not bad or wrong in some way. I've turned my back on such discourse for good reason- I won't engage in it again. Each to their own and I respect that so long as the respect is mutual.
My practice is very personal and private- another reason why is so valuable to have this space with likeminded others- without hierarchy or judgment.
I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well... I appreciate our space here, admire those willing to explain and/or defend it and am clearer than ever that I don't want to explain or defend my way of life to anyone who I feel has a preconceived negative view of it.
Just wanted to state my feelings I guess...