On Being Spiritual

Spirituality is cool these days. Its warm and fuzzy aura now appeals to more and more people in the West. Online dating sites abound with claims of being “spiritual but not religious”. Interest in eastern beliefs and native Indian practices has never been higher. Many now instinctively accord a sense of “spiritual wisdom” to ancient traditions.  Self-help aisles in bookstores keep growing and routinely address a “spiritual void” many perceive in their lives.

Yet most people interested in spirituality, when asked, would be hard pressed to come up with what it means to be spiritual. Many would equate it with less or more progressive versions of their traditional faith, incorporating a subset of its ideas, symbols, and rituals; some might define it as a syncretic mix of multiple faiths; others may think of it as a non-denominational mystical feeling and reverence for a force larger than themselves, such as nature.

I have my own idea of spirituality, of course, and I consider some people more spiritual than others. Yet I rarely find an idea of spirituality that I wholly admire. Last year, for instance, the president of World Pantheism, which claims lots of luminaries on its roster, wrote to me to request use of some of my photos, “We are completely naturalistic and nature-oriented – our views go under several other names such as religious naturalism, naturalistic spirituality, eco-humanism, etc.”    In my affirmative reply, I also noted my own thoughts about nature reverence:    

As an aside: Immensely progressive as your World Pantheistic Movement belief statement is, I must admit that I personally have trouble according reverence to nature. I feel immense wonder, but no reverence. Nature to me is brutal and violent. All available evidence suggests that nothing in nature cares about me – I am a pawn in its pointless (as far as we can tell) bloody game. So why should I waste my reverence on it?

I offer below my provisional thoughts on what being spiritual means to me. Readers are invited to react or post their own views.

To me spirituality is inseparable from reason. Devoid of reason it becomes a form of escapism, a longing for something inchoate and unattainable. Without a restless energy that seeks self-knowledge—leading to a higher self-awareness—there is no spirituality. A belief in god is incompatible with my idea of spirituality; it may have therapeutic value but I consider it superstition, rooted in fear and ignorance. A somewhat stronger expression of my own view on god was put forth by Periyar Ramasami, a social reformer in south India: "He who created god was a fool, he who spreads his name is a scoundrel, and he who worships him is a barbarian."

To be spiritual is to attend to your spirit—the sensibility that evokes joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, empathy and remorse. To be spiritual is to be compassionate without discounting (or overestimating) the value of knowledge and detachment. Spirituality evades the incurious, and the complacent, and those who do not doubt, and those who have the final answers, and those who complain too much. Those who don't have frequent raging debates in their heads cannot be spiritual. Wonder  is a prerequisite, as are personal responsibility and attention to cause and effect.

Some years ago, I came across a great metaphor for the human psyche: the zoo. Imagine a zoo with a zookeeper and lots of animals, wild and domestic, ferocious and meek, whose well-being depends on the zookeeper’s knowledge of their unique traits. If he slouches off, the animals might suffer, or might turn on each other, and the overall health of the zoo suffers. The animals represent the subterranean forces within us—the source of our feelings, passions, creativity. The zookeeper represents the rational faculty, drawn to analysis, order, classification. Together they make up our psyche (or soul). The zookeeper may study the animals but not tamper with their natures to avoid unpleasant side effects. Also part of his job is to toss lobes of meat to the leopard, feed bananas to the monkeys, and make numerous other arrangements—all for the health of the zoo. One can build the metaphor further.  For example, the animals inhabit constrained spaces, much like the effect culture,  or other social conditioning, has on our psyche.

To be spiritual is to try and understand our inner zoo. The spiritual person aspires to be ruled by an analytical faculty that knows its own limits, knows when to humbly step aside and let the non-analytical faculties do their work, and listen to them soberly, vigilantly. An alert awareness of our inner zoo is the hallmark of the spiritual.

Comments

[Ruchira Paul]

Well said, Namit. I would echo most of what you have said.

Hence my question. Why were you then arguing with me on the topic of our innate "Moral Compass" where I was making pretty much the same case? :-)

[Shunya]

Ruchira:
Thanks. As I noted here, I myself saw it more as an exchange of views. ;-)

[Meeyu]

Spirituality is what we left behind since birth to pursue what is "right," "good," and "fulfilling," as taught by our wiser predecessors, to gain an upper hand in the material world. One day it dawns that we so under-explore this origin that regret consumes us to our dying days, for missing out on "spirituality," the very thing we learn to rid, only to search for it on a bookshelf or on a strenuous trip to Tibet.

[Terry]

Thanks for the brilliant summation of what it means to be spiritual yet very rational at the same time.

I have been exploring Pantheism lately on my own and while I also feel wonder, appreciation of Nature as a whole, and that all life is interconnected and sacred, I do not know how to reconcile the Violent and cruel aspects of nature with 'reverence' so I have hesitated to say-I am a Pantheist.

For a very long time I called myself a spiritual Atheist as belief in God for me is foolish, illogical and superstitious until too many Atheists suggested I was using an incorrect label so on this search I went to understand my inner zoo.

I think I shall stick around and read on, I find your words inspirational, Thanks again!

[Gerald Moonen]

I regard myself as a spiritual man. I have walked the path. By they way, the path is different for each person depending on the person's conditioning. There is no cure for all. I see spirituality as a process in which one through self-knowledge comes to terms with one's conditioning and thereby removes our negative conditioning and sets one's soul free, beyond beliefs, fears and boundaries, in unity with all that exists. It is a long process in which one gets dished up one conditioning after the next until all has been fully understood. Yes, this includes one's sexuality. When one has cleaned the mirror inside of all this cobwebs one goes through a transcendence after which one sees everything in a new light.

So spirituality is not a belief or a religious setimentality. It is a practical form of hard work and anybody who is committed to look within will be able to be come enlightened. It is no more then a maturing of men. It is part of our natural development.

[Brian]

As quoted "Those who don't have frequent raging debates in their heads cannot be spiritual. Wonder is a prerequisite, as are personal responsibility and attention to cause and effect."...

So you have to be a lunatic and have higher moral understanding of how things work in a "side effects" mentality to be spiritual? You're just running your sentences together full of big worded nonsense and it's untrue... In it's simplest form to be spiritual is to worship and the extension of exercising your faith or belief. It's the act of, the conduit or extension of what you believe. You can be totally misguided in what you believe whether it's atheist, satanist, buddist, or even zen-zooist but still be spiritual. It doesn't mean you've made the right choice or that you're even seeing things clearer or right but that you're acting or exercising within your guided or misguidedness.

We could talk about creation, Adam and Eve, God, and how the amazing planet we live on was created but that's not really the topic at hand here is it? Besides it's easier for some to curse and rant about self imposed theory and will rather than looking for factual truths within creation, worship, or spirituality. The fact is yes it was created (it didn't just explode into all the beauty and perfect planet we have and rotate on the perfect axis) and yes it's true we didn't come from monkeys (that's why they still exist and will never look like humans). We could go real deep in to soul searching rather than praying to the forest but it may be a little ugly when you uncover your own truths, and that's whats called "spiritual or ideological development". This is a great page that drew me in. I do love the nature (trees, birds etc...) that our creator God who sent his son Jesus Christ for mine and your salvation here to earth made...It's beatiful, it's spirtiual, and in the end it's truth.

[Joseph]

It’s nice to find similar beliefs, and Namit’s summery is indeed inspirational. In regards to Brian's comment I’ve read comment similar many times before, and they all end with the unveiling of your true message… god. Which apparently was the basis of your rant, by the way serves no rationale. God created Adam and Eve 6k years ago, yet using modern science's Radiometric Dating the earth is determined to be as old as 4.6 billion years, although in the scientific field this is considered reliable, the Christian community claims it is flawed and the debate stops there. In my opinion being spiritual is internal peace with your eyes wide open. With that said I do believe in a higher power, but not conceived in a religion.

Good luck to all in your venture of your own spirituality.

[steve]

I found the most comprehensive and satisfying - to me - encapsulation of spirituality, one that gives reason its place and does not shun dualities, to be from this yogi called Sari Aurobindo. I may not be ready for the spiritual quest, but he's the best light I've found via a long search.

At the least, read him before you do anything else.

[auntiegrav]

"As an aside: Immensely progressive as your World Pantheistic Movement belief statement is, I must admit that I personally have trouble according reverence to nature. I feel immense wonder, but no reverence. Nature to me is brutal and violent. All available evidence suggests that nothing in nature cares about me – I am a pawn in its pointless (as far as we can tell) bloody game. So why should I waste my reverence on it?"

To say "Nature is brutal and violent" is denying the human zoo. We not only have a mental zoo, but a physical one which encompasses both our outer skin and our inner gut. We cannot say "nature is brutal and violent" without being disingenuous. WE ARE NATURE. We are not separate from it in any way. Spirituality is, to me, simply a way of looking at how I fit into the universe. I cannot separate my mind from my soil, nor my food from my automobile's fuel tank. To dismiss a reverence for Nature is to dismiss reverence for yourself. This mindset is exploited daily by marketers and priests worldwide, who profit from our blindness to the connections we all have.

One comment said, "In it's simplest form to be spiritual is to worship and the extension of exercising your faith or belief."

This works for some people, but I deduced on 9/11 that True Evil is easily defined: it is any action taken based upon Blind Faith. Pretty simple. We are all responsible for the consequences of our actions (May our children forgive our waste), and taking action without questioning Gods, Governments, or Gurus almost always results in some kind of betrayal of our species' potential future.

Thank you for the informative references on your site.

[Namit]

auntiegrav:
Thanks for your thoughtful note. John Muir once said, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” I completely agree that "we are nature", not apart from it. But I can't muster any reverence even for this inclusive notion of nature. Curiosity, wonder, bewilderment, yes, but no reverence. Isn't reverence a big obstacle to self-knowledge?

[auntiegrav]

I take the first meaning: "deference". In other words, we should defer to the whole of nature that is us and is not us in order to determine what we will need in the future. We cannot say "killing is wrong", while we need to eat plants and animals, nor should we. I think Derrick Jensen says it well when he said, "If we kill something, we have to take on the responsibility of that thing." If we kill a tree, we need to make sure that oxygen and food production and microecosystems are replaced with something else. If we kill wolves, we have to take on responsibility for controlling the herds of deer, etc. Many times, it is better not to do such things, as it is impractical or too complex to even begin to replace those pieces of the natural chaos. By the same token, we must have respect for our own desires to live and create, with all things in moderation. The reverence of nature is what I refer to as Net Creativity: our efforts should primarily be to create more future usefulness than we consume in resources. We have to stop thinking competitively and think cooperatively. Competition with nature (ourselves and our future) is insanity.

[Tom Carroll]

I stumbled across your site and have dropped a white pebble so that I can find it again when I have some free time to browse thru. I read enough to recognize another soul on a journey, someone not afraid to share thoughts and views from their personal path.

The world is changing, one soul at a time. We accelerate the pace when we drop our fear of reaching out to other souls, to share without judgement, to reach out a hand to those who need it.

I'll be back...
Tom Carroll
Author of "The Confession of Mason Young"
http://www.tcarroll-online.com

[Scott Leever]

I once had a Priest ask me what I thought spirituality was. After thinking about it for a while I realized I had no idea. He told me that maybe it was the search for truth. I then said,"does that mean an atheist scientist would then be spiritual." He said,"Yes." That threw me for a loop. I always thought spirituality was the practice of religion. Many years has past since that conversation. Since then I have studied and practiced many faiths and sciences, one thing remains constant. I still do not know what spirituality is, I am still searching. The more I seem to think I know, the less I know. We are a mystery. Embrace the mystery, it is a glorious thing.

[freep2]

Did the universe self-invent itself? Is it nature? Since we have egos, psyches, minds, souls & personalities (either spiritual or non-spiritual), then are not we (all inclusive egos, etc.) in fact, a part of that self created universe?

Or, did not a creation device or force, ie., a supreme dna creator/ enablor bring about all the matter, dark energy, dark matter, black holes, periodic table, esp events, natural laws & quantum effects, up to & including faster than speed of light travel/phenomena of photons, and other criteria of the self aware universe?

If DNA/RNA is the messenge code of beings, then then were we intended to be readers of the code?

Creation MYTHS? Where there is smoke, there is a source of said smoke ! Pray for all our terroist enemies. PLEASE.