PostMo Definitions of Spirituality

[Born Free]

I am interested to see how others definine 'spirituality', since departing Mormonism.

I have observed some people throw the baby with the bathwater, and feel/think that the notion of spirituality is a package deal with religous.

Some of those people appeared to benefit when they found that the notion of spirituality is viable, even stronger, without religiousity.

Also what books, speakers, etc have shaped your definition, and is it still evolving?

Daryl

[Jeff_Ricks]

I am interested to see how others definine 'spirituality', since departing Mormonism.

I have observed some people throw the baby with the bathwater, and feel/think that the notion of spirituality is a package deal with religous.

Some of those people appeared to benefit when they found that the notion of spirituality is viable, even stronger, without religiousity.

Also what books, speakers, etc have shaped your definition, and is it still evolving?

Daryl


What is spirituality without religion? I’m not sure I know. Is it the experience of awe and wonder we feel when contemplating what lies beyond the frontier of current human discovery? Or is it something else?

If pressed for a definition, what I think I would call spirituality is the act of getting in touch with the deeper levels of our psyches and experiencing the more complete wholeness that is a part of human consciousness often never experienced by some.

My first encounter with this side of my “self” coincided with my first steps out of the Church in my late 30’s. Indeed, it was this experience that gave me the courage to begin to objectively question things I was uncomfortable about the Church. I hesitate to call it a spiritual experience for the same reason I avoid a number of words I used to use quite freely as a believer. But as I sit here with fingers resting on the keyboard I struggle with what else to call it. Perhaps, “self-discovery.” Yes, I think that works for me. Spirituality to me these days is the act of self-discovery, and perhaps should include the act of discovery in general, which is very closely linked to the experience of enlightenment.

Most books that I enjoy in my journey of enlightenment are on speculative physics, biology and psychology. I like some of Jung's concepts. His theory of a collective conscious fascinates me. Another book that is very speculative and controversial but generally well reasoned, and a fun read is A New Science of Life by Rupert Sheldrake. I won’t attempt to explain the subject but one quote from the Washington Post characterizes well my view of the content: “A startling new theory…intriguing beyond words.”

Another book I like is The Physics of Consciousness by Evan H. Walker, a noted physicist. Another is Though Contagion by Aaron Lynch regarding the nature of information propagation within cultures. Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness is one I read a few years ago and liked. I need to refresh my memory on its content though. So, I guess I revealed what my favorite subject is: Exactly who and what the hell are we?

Yes, discovery. That’s my word for spirituality these days.

Jeff

[Born Free]

What is spirituality without religion? I’m not sure I know. Is it the experience of awe and wonder we feel when contemplating what lies beyond the frontier of current human discovery? Or is it something else?

Yes, discovery. That’s my word for spirituality these days.

Jeff

Jeff,

I loved your answer. It is highly consistent with the best definitions/works/philosophies that I have located and where I am at, but to be a real tease. I will hold off sharing until others have shared where they are at.

Several years sgo I started here a group operating under the banner 'Post religious spirituality'. It gathered 3 ExMos, an ExSDA gay psychologist, an ExCatholic priest, an exUniting Church son of a lay preacher, and one active SDA Pastor. Great group.

The incentive to start that was, I had observed that the guys doing some of the best work in Men's Liberation work, had been raised in religous families. To a man they reported having been burnt by their religous experience, but all seemed to have a strong thirst for spirituality and have first class integrity.

Just to be a tease - how many of you know that Neitzsche, source of the statement "God is dead", was a passionate believer in, and promoter of spirituality?

Daryl

[silverfox]

On a personal level I have never felt so much spirituality in my life than since my exit from the church. I am not sure how to put it into words. I have building a great belief in MYSELF, MY capabilities, MY desire to live a full life, MY desire to take responsibility for my own life, etc, etc, etc. So for now while still just a few years new in my exit, it's all about ME, ME, ME. The more "selfish" I become on a personal spiritual level, the more I am able to reach out to others and grasp life.

Sounds corny, I know.

I have tried to avoid reading many books regarding spirituaility. I am enjoying me venture into it in the raw, with no preconcieved ideas of how it should be. (for fear I may put irrational pressure on myself to fit yet ANOTHER mold) At some point I will need direction but for now I am just being amazed at MYSELF and how good it feels to have control of my own life and how much joy that brings.

[peter_mary]

I am interested to see how others definine 'spirituality', since departing Mormonism.

I have observed some people throw the baby with the bathwater, and feel/think that the notion of spirituality is a package deal with religous.

Some of those people appeared to benefit when they found that the notion of spirituality is viable, even stronger, without religiousity.

Also what books, speakers, etc have shaped your definition, and is it still evolving?

Daryl

The working definition of spirituality for me has simply been "the pursuit of meaning in my life." As a lay-student of chaos, complexity, quantum physics, evolution and astronomy, I have come to a very comfortable understanding of my physical place in the universe. I feel I belong, am an integrated part of the whole. The universe is continually unfolding, and it just happens to be unfolding in "Paul" right now, and whatever I am feeds back into the next moment of the universe and helps to create it, which in turn helps to create me; a co-creative dance with the entire cosmos. The "meaning" in all of that, however, has to be derived from inside me, since my personal model is absent a "Prime Mover," or "First Creator." The pursuit of that meaning, the discovery and attendant growth, is what I call "spirituality." It is that learning and discovering that moves my mind from a simple organic mass with its associated electrical impulses, to a force operating in the universe and impacting it beyond my simply displacing a certain volume of matter.

I would be hard pressed to name one, or even a few books that I could point to and say, "Those are the ones." But here are a few that were key:

"The Quantum Self," by Danah Zohar;

"A History of God," by Karan Armstrong;

"The Battle for God," also by Karan Armstrong;

"The Challice and the Blade," by Riane Eisler;

"The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hahn;

"Chaos: Making of a New Science" by James Gleick

"Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos" by Michael Waldrop

"Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought" by Pascal Boyer

All of these, and a whole lot more, have contributed to my evolving sense of spirituality in a natural universe.

Paul

[Jeff_Ricks]

The working definition of spirituality for me has simply been "the pursuit of meaning in my life." As a lay-student of chaos, complexity, quantum physics, evolution and astronomy, I have come to a very comfortable understanding of my physical place in the universe. I feel I belong, am an integrated part of the whole. The universe is continually unfolding, and it just happens to be unfolding in "Paul" right now, and whatever I am feeds back into the next moment of the universe and helps to create it, which in turn helps to create me; a co-creative dance with the entire cosmos. The "meaning" in all of that, however, has to be derived from inside me, since my personal model is absent a "Prime Mover," or "First Creator." The pursuit of that meaning, the discovery and attendant growth, is what I call "spirituality." It is that learning and discovering that moves my mind from a simple organic mass with its associated electrical impulses, to a force operating in the universe and impacting it beyond my simply displacing a certain volume of matter.

Paul

My oh my that speaks to me. I have not another word to add to it.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

My oh my that speaks to me. I have not another word to add to it.

Jeff

So the universe is unfolding in Jeff, too! :)

Paul

[Jeff_Ricks]

So the universe is unfolding in Jeff, too! :)

Paul


Yes! That’s the way I see it too. And in that sense I am God. At lease the god of the universe unfolding within me. In my universe (a.k.a. reality) there is no other being of higher power above me that I must bow and kneel too. I am God by virtue of the fact that I am the one and only Observer in my universe (I speak for all of us of course). Even quantum physics allows for only one ultimate Observer in any reality, to effect a given quantum event. This leaves no room for any other god of anyone's universe but the one there observing it -- each of us! Knowing that gives me great peace of mind.

Mormonism and other religions fool us into giving up our birthright as The God of our universe by handing it over to a myth (in my not so humble opinion). In essence we slide over from the driver side of our universe to the passenger side and pretend that something else is behind the wheel taking responsibility for the driving. More accurately stated, we are raised with the notion that we are mere passengers in our universe and we have never had the experience of sitting behind the wheel. That is until something happens, like it did in my life, that left me no choice but to take control and get things back on track!

Leaving Mormonism was for me like sliding back behind the wheel, not only taking responsibility for steering my life but finding out that the view is so much better from the driver’s side. Wow! What a ride! Things don’t always go right (but they sure seem to be a LOT better now!) but I have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s up to me as God to fix it when things need addressing. And I can fix it in the way that I choose to fix it. And doing so becomes an act of learning and discovery – a so called spiritual experience – that makes life what it was meant to be. An awesome ride!

Jeff

[peter_mary]

Yes! That’s the way I see it too. And in that sense I am God. At lease the god of the universe unfolding within me.

Things don’t always go right (but they sure seem to be a LOT better now!) but I have the satisfaction of knowing that it’s up to me as God to fix it when things need addressing. And I can fix it in the way that I choose to fix it. And doing so becomes an act of learning and discovery – a so called spiritual experience – that makes life what it was meant to be. An awesome ride!

Jeff

Right! Shifting the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of a "scape-goat" and back onto your own. I guess I don't understand why that's such a scary notion for so many folks... But it is...

Paul

[Jeff_Ricks]

On a personal level I have never felt so much spirituality in my life than since my exit from the church. I am not sure how to put it into words. I have building a great belief in MYSELF, MY capabilities, MY desire to live a full life, MY desire to take responsibility for my own life, etc, etc, etc. So for now while still just a few years new in my exit, it's all about ME, ME, ME. The more "selfish" I become on a personal spiritual level, the more I am able to reach out to others and grasp life.

Sounds corny, I know.

I have tried to avoid reading many books regarding spirituaility. I am enjoying me venture into it in the raw, with no preconcieved ideas of how it should be. (for fear I may put irrational pressure on myself to fit yet ANOTHER mold) At some point I will need direction but for now I am just being amazed at MYSELF and how good it feels to have control of my own life and how much joy that brings.



It doesn't sound corny at all. One of the things that I enjoy seeing as people emerge from the church (like the new creature emerging from the cocoon -- love your avatar btw!), is that among those who don't choose another religion to fill the void, we all seem to end up in the same place. It is all about ME, ME, ME.

The world we live in, the world I once thought of as the stage in which a Heavenly Father's script is acted out, has become a wholly different paradigm. I’ve come to a realization that what I once thought of as me, a spirit and a body at a fixed point in space, actually extends throughout the universe. It’s all ME.

Am I making sense? If the word narcissistic comes to mind then I’d better try again another time. ;)

Jeff

[nate]

Right! Shifting the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of a "scape-goat" and back onto your own. I guess I don't understand why that's such a scary notion for so many folks... But it is...

Paul

Exactly! I like to call this Comfortable Vulnerability. We can not learn if we are not humble. We can not be humble if we can not accept that fact that we do not know, or might be wrong. We can not accept that fact without consciously becoming vulnerable.

For some, this vulnerability is terrifying. For me, it's comfortable, and very, very necessary. It is my spirituality. And while here, colors are more vibrant, the unknown is more intruiging, and I can find beauty in places I never would have imagined!

[bigeddy]

Yesterday something happened in a class I teach that helped me further pul into focus what the spiritual essence is for me. The class was on relationships and I was laying groundwork for the approach I take to this bit of psychology. We were working on the issue of understanding ourselves as an important beginning to all relationships. I wanted the class to practice seeing beneath their thoughts and other mental clutter to the gut-level affective beliefs that lie beneath. I played a song that often knocks me down. (I know, Jeff, that you know the song. It is Peter Mayer's "Everything is Holy Now.") I had played several other pieces of good music to warm them up and practice being aware of our feelings and then following that to discern the true nature of the affective belief beneath. After playing this one a couple of the students (marvelous, real, honest, wonderful humans) made comments about feeling a need to go to church. The song speaks of going to Sunday School, Bible events and etc. so they connected it to that. But I could feel in them a deeper longing. So I pushed them to pursue. Both these students said that they felt a longing, a lacking and both agreed that they did not attend church so maybe the longing could be satisfied there. So I kept pursuing it with them till be clarified what they were really after. It turned out to be that the were hungering to connect with something holy, something divine, something worthy of true awe. As we worked at it as a class we narrowed it down to a hunger to connect from one sacredness (a single person behind her/his own steering wheel (ala Jeff)) to another sacredness. Several of the students stated that they felt the connectedness they longed for happening in the class when one of the 2 previously mentioned students had opened herself up with a marvelous honesty about her hungering. We watched it go on right there in class as many of us were able to connect from the sacredness that is us to the sacredness that is her. We agreed that it would be a struggle to put any words to what we felt. I talked to them about the process of mystical learning. That to me, connecting with another human being is a divine process, a mystical one. I knew how seldom this happened with the Mo-mob. Connecting with someone's facade is a drag. I pushed the point that to relate to people has to begin with the respect for their divinity. People are here, not for us to control, but to be in awe of. It was a powerful session with a bunch of wet eyes.

Sooo, spirituality for me is a mystical process that defies words but cannot be missed when felt. For me it tends to involve 2 things. Growth and connecting with other people who are being real, or connecting to other sacrednesses.

Ed

[silverfox]

Exactly! I like to call this Comfortable Vulnerability. We can not learn if we are not humble. We can not be humble if we can not accept that fact that we do not know, or might be wrong. We can not accept that fact without consciously becoming vulnerable.

For some, this vulnerability is terrifying. For me, it's comfortable, and very, very necessary. It is my spirituality. And while here, colors are more vibrant, the unknown is more intruiging, and I can find beauty in places I never would have imagined!

Doesn't it seem we are more "like children" NOW than we ever were as MOs??? Wait, I think the church viewed that concept as being OBEDIENT like children, am I right? Except the obedience was to the DOCTRINE not spirituality or God, etc. I feel much more humble now than ever as a MO. It's weird....don't know how to explain it. Let's just chalk me up as a weirdo. :)

[wescape]

Ed, I was intrigued by your post and it reminded me of the German word sehnsucht which is powerfully portrayed in the writings of C. S. Lewis. It is has to do with the idea of inconsolable longings—desires that cannot be fully satisfied in this life.

"We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. . . ."
—C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Anyway, I totally agree that spirituality involves a mystical process of being in awe of others and connecting with them in a real way.

Wes

[Jeff_Ricks]

On a personal level I have never felt so much spirituality in my life than since my exit from the church. I am not sure how to put it into words. I have building a great belief in MYSELF, MY capabilities, MY desire to live a full life, MY desire to take responsibility for my own life, etc, etc, etc. So for now while still just a few years new in my exit, it's all about ME, ME, ME. The more "selfish" I become on a personal spiritual level, the more I am able to reach out to others and grasp life.

Sounds corny, I know.

I have tried to avoid reading many books regarding spirituaility. I am enjoying me venture into it in the raw, with no preconcieved ideas of how it should be. (for fear I may put irrational pressure on myself to fit yet ANOTHER mold) At some point I will need direction but for now I am just being amazed at MYSELF and how good it feels to have control of my own life and how much joy that brings.

Let me try to explain how I view this ME, ME stuff.

I see myself not so much as an individual but as a wholeness that we share in common. That may sounds bizarre so let me illustrate with a metaphor. In my view we are like a hand. Hold your hand out in front of you and picture me (what I used to think of me) as the little finger. Silverfox is the ring finger, Ed another, Nikki another (and oh crap I should have never started naming names, but you get my point), and everyone else is a separate and distinct finger. At least that’s how we normally perceive ourselves as we interact. I’m this finger and you’re that one.

But also a part of the little finger is the base it connects to, the palm, and lets include the forearm etc. All of that is part of me, the little finger. It is all one organism. Now let’s take Nikki, the forefinger. She also is the palm and forearm just as I am, and as we all are. It’s that palm, not the little finger I think of when I say I am God. That's the ME I speak of and I think SilverFox refers to. Therefore, the notion that I am God is not so narcissistic as it might otherwise seem.

It’s obvious how the fingers connects to the common palm as one inseparable unit, but it’s less obvious how we likewise literally connect as one inseparable unit (disclaimer: at least from my perspective folks). Consider this. What we normally consider as the sacred center of who we are is our mind, including our thoughts, our memories, etc. If each of those thoughts and memories are removed one by one, we are likewise deconstructing our minds until the last thought is removed, and there is no longer anything left that we can call a mind. We are no more.

The act of meditation is essentially the process of temporarily deconstructing ones mind by removing thoughts. Not by erasing thoughts and memories but by temporarily shutting them off. The result is the same. When those thoughts are no more the mind is no more. But rather than disappearing into nothingness the boundaries of consciousness expand to include everything, resulting in a sense of oneness with the universe. Extrapolating from that I suspect we’ll experience something similar when we die. But I digress.

My point is, what we perceive as our mind seems to be directly dependent on the existence of our thoughts. Where there are thoughts there is a mind. Where there are no thoughts there is only a lifeless lump of gray matter. The difference comes to one thing and one thing only -- the existence of thoughts. Even the medical industry determines whether a mind actually is in a lump of tissue by probing for the existence of thoughts. It measures brain activity, and if there is no brain activity, which means there are no thoughts, then it is determined that there is no mind and the lump of matter is pronounced deceased. The existence of our mind is directly dependent on the existence of our thoughts. There's no way around the conclusion.

But here’s the real mindblower! Where did our thoughts come from? Where did I learn to tie my shoes? From something outside of myself – from my mother. Where did I learn how to add and subtract? From something outside myself – my first grade teacher. Where did I learn to have an appreciation for women – my thoughts about sex in other words? From something outside of myself – the genes I inherited and from various visual stimuli I observed throughout my life. Where did I learn that the sky is blue? From something outside of myself – from looking at the sky. As a baby where did I learn to suck? From something outside of myself – again from the genes I inherited. I challenge anyone to run through each of their thoughts and I think you’ll find that everyone of them you obtained from something outside of what you think of as your Self. And if that is the case the implications are astounding!

This leads to the conclusion that our mind, which is wholly dependent on the existence of our thoughts was derived from outside of ourselves – from other minds and from our environment. This pool of information from which it is derived that we all share in common and pass from person to person and back again requires that our minds are all connected just as literally as all the fingers are connected by virtue of the common palm that they share.

Having said that, the God that I am that rules my universe is that common pool – or is at least one of many facets of that common pool just as the little finger is one of many facets of the palm. I feel that I connect with others when I remember that I was never NOT connected to them. Those moments of truely remembering and internalizing the concept are rare. Usually my perception of what I am gets lost in the illusion I’ve been raised to think that I am – a separate and distinct sprit and body, which is simply not true.

Sorry for rambling, but there is a point in all that. My point is that we are inseparably one, whether we think we are connected to each other or not. It is that Oneness that I am that I call God when I say I am God of the universe unfolding within me.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

Let me try to explain how I view this ME, ME stuff.

I see myself not so much as an individual but as a wholeness that we share in common.

Jeff

I VERY much appreciated what you were saying in this post. Being a lover of metaphor, I want to throw more fuel on this particular fire. (Not because you need me to, but because I can't STAND not participating! :rolleyes: )

I want to begin with an examination of something familiar, but wholly unrelated. The surface of a pond. If we stand back and observe the surface of a pond, we can fool ourselves into believing we can distinguish a hard boundary between "pond" and "not pond." Clearly, all the water is "in the pond," and above the pond is only air. But if we zoom way in, WAY in, we see that there is a fuzzy boundary between "pond" and "not pond" where air is constantly dissolving into and out of the water, and water is constantly evaporating out and condensing back in. If we get very close to that boundary, we see that there is no clear point at which you can determine "pond" and "not pond." The exchange, or the relationship, makes it very difficult to say "this is one, that is the other." You CAN, but it becomes a matter of convenience more than reality.

I believe that people are the same way. In a physical sense, you can zoom way in on the physical boundary of me and try to make the same determination at the molecular level of what is "Paul" and "not Paul," and you actually encounter the same problem as the pond. My molecules, my body heat, my dead cells :eek: ... But for conscious beings, it is far more important to view the boundary between people--at the thought and expression level.

How can I even begin to tease apart what is me from what was introduced to me as I live and breath? (This is, I believe, Jeff's point about being "introduced" to all these things from some external source.) How can I know the extent to which the generations upon generations of thinking and growing and living that has gone on before me has in fact contributed to making me who I am? I can't even begin to grasp the infinity of that contribution, all the way back to trilobites and flatworms! Further, how can I know the extent to which my actions, my tapping at this keyboard, for instance, is influencing your life and mine, and later the lives of your children and mine, and their lives? I have no way of knowing the muddy footprints I've tracked through your minds, nor do you have any way of knowing the tracks you've left in mine. But leave them we do, and we are fooling ourselves if we think we are unaffected by every person we encounter.

Another metaphor: In the old Newtonian physics, particles were considered like billiard balls, and when they collided, they only exchanged energy, and the only changes affected were direction and velocity. With the advent of quantum mechanics, we now understand particles in a different manner--when they collide, they actually "mix it up" for a fraction of an instant. When they leave the scene of the collision, they indeed have exchanged energy, but they've also exchanged everything else, and it doesn't make sense to think of the two particles leaving the scene as the same two particles that entered it.

People are, metaphorically speaking, the same way. We don't bounce off each other, we mix it up, and it doesn't make sense to think of two people leaving the scene of an encounter as the same two people who came to it...they are changed. Furthermore, we interact with our environment and our own thoughts, too, and when you consider the near infinity of encounters that we have in the course of a lifetime, it's easy to see that what we think of as "us" is really indistinguishable from the whole soup that is "everything."

Our lives are indeed inextricably connected in ways and means we probably are only beginning to grasp, and no doubt in ways that haven't even occurred to us. I do know that each of you are the product of a totality of experiences that are in large part unique from mine, and when you interact with me, you change me. We exchange "mind particles" at that fuzzy boundary, where we "mix it up," and if I get in there and really look, what is "me" is really just a sum of "all that is and ever was."

From where I stand, like Jeff says, "I am the Universe."

"Holy Heratic, Batman! Put him away!" :)

Paul

[Jeff_Ricks]

what is "me" is really just a sum of "all that is and ever was."


Thank you! I enjoyed your perspective on the same subject. Thank you for pulling me away from my pet metaphors so I can consider the same concepts using yours. Multiple perspectives are always a benefit if arriving at the truth of a matter is the objective.

Your statement above sums it all up beautifully for me.

Jeff

[silverfox]

Let me try to explain how I view this ME, ME stuff.

Jeff

Breathless! That was GOOD! If I smoked I'd need a cigarette right now!

[Jeff_Ricks]

Breathless! That was GOOD! If I smoked I'd need a cigarette right now!


Hahaha! Thank you. That's quite the compliment. :)

Final thought: If what we are is in fact “the sum of all that is and ever was” then what happens to us when we “die?”

I won’t try to articulate an answer to that (maybe someone else will), but it's a facinating question to consider.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

Hahaha! Thank you. That's quite the compliment. :)

Final thought: If what we are is in fact “the sum of all that is and ever was” then what happens to us when we “die?”

I won’t try to articulate an answer to that (maybe someone else will), but it's a facinating question to consider.

Jeff

You knew I'd take the bait... :)

In the same sense that everything that has ever been lives on in me, so do I live on in everthing that comes after. Consciousness is lost, (at least it seems that way to me...I'll not pretend to know this...), but our influence, however small, played a role in how the universe unfolds in the next moment. The sum of it all is nothing less than the evolving universe, and we are all there...captured in the collective memory of the next generation, the next iteration, the eternal evolution of the cosmos. We are each like the flap of a butterfly's wings (Silverfox's will do!), and how that flap influences the next moment cannot be known...but it does influence it. It can't HELP it! The influence is eternal, played back in the never-ending feedback loop of one moment playing into the next. And hence, we too are eternal.

The Carl Sagan in me wants to say "Billions and Billions" right now... :D

Paul

[Jeff_Ricks]

.
.
.
We are each like the flap of a butterfly's wings (Silverfox's will do!), and how that flap influences the next moment cannot be known...but it does influence it. It can't HELP it! The influence is eternal, played back in the never-ending feedback loop of one moment playing into the next. And hence, we too are eternal.

The Carl Sagan in me wants to say "Billions and Billions" right now... :D

Paul


Bob McCue has a passage in his current article in of the Post-Mormon Magazine that I just love. It approaches our subject so I’ll take advantage of that and share it. And I just received an email from Bob with another good article, so Bob's work is fresh on my mind:

“Today it occurred to me that many things seem to exude beauty as they expire and prepare to feed a new cycle of growth. Ripened crops burst with energy as they are laid in symmetrical rows. Flowers scream for our attention. Salmon leap magnificently upstream through the rapids as they prepare to spawn. But for a head of grain, a flower, a salmon – this process means death. They each in their own way struggle to sustain themselves while engendering new life. And in their ultimate effort we perceive majesty and mystery. The first draws us. The second awes and holds us. These individual struggles, in endless pattern, create life’s greater beauties and harmonies.

And so I now perceive my efforts to free myself from the culture that nurtured and bound me. Something was dying as something else came into being in the course of what felt to me like a clash of Titans or the death (or birth – it is hard to tell the two apart) of the Cosmos. And if my leaf shone in some small way as I fought and then yielded to life’s cycle, it was a tiny stroke on renewing humanity’s breathtaking canvass. My contribution to this wonder would not be noticed by anyone other than the few who turned color and fell beside me. For the rest to see me would be like deciding for some reason to pick up one leaf among the millions in an autumn neighbourhood.

Mine is a spark from the universe-wide flame - nothing more. My experience is repeated countless times even as I form these words. It is nothing, and yet a miracle for me and a few of those who chanced to see my leaf and life’s pattern in it.”

Bob McCue

Thanks Paul and thanks Bob!

Jeff

[Born Free]

When I departed Moism, I was intuitively uncomfortable with jettisoning the idea of spirituality. But I was aware I wanted to establish whether I was holding on out of fear, or of a deeper knowing that could be validated in sound logic.

Over time, several thinker/writers helped me focus my thinking. One was a long time favourite philosopher/writer, well known for his works on self-esteem, Nathaniel Branden. He has been doing a series of interviews with Ken Wilbur over recent months on the IntegralNaked site at http://www.integralnaked.org/

The most recent is closely related to this issue - the difference between ego and Ego.

In one of his more recent books - The Art of Living Consciously, he had a chapter entitled Consciousness and Spirituality. This is the definition he uses:

'Whoever continually strives to achieve a clearer and clearer vision of reality and our place in it - whoever is pulled forward by a passion for clarity - is to that extent leading a spiritual life'.

I have read it a dozen times or more, and it still 'makes my bosom burn'.

He goes on:

'Religion is primarily the domain of beliefs, rules, rituals. Authentic spirituality is reflected in how one lives and how one experiences existence, not in what one professes to believe; it is intrinsically individualistic rather than conformist. A person may use his or her religion to inspire a personal spiritual journey, a quest for greater consciousness, but religion itself does not necessarily imply any such quest. Indeed, it may support the illusion of spirituality while leading in the opposite direction - by demanding that consciousness be sacrificed to faith and threatening hell as punishment for thinking, or by ridiculing a person's struggle to make sense out of what is being taught. So, about any tenet one must ask: Does this support or constrict the active use of mind? Is this teaching addressed to my understanding or to my fears? Am I offered awareness or escape from the responsibility of awareness? The courage to raise and confront such questions is itself a spiritual achievement. It is consciousness committed to its own growth and self-actualisation."

Resonate with anyone's experience of Mormonism?

In another place, he reclaims spirituality from the vague meaningless land of religion with:

"The word 'spirit,' in its origins, means 'breath'. Spirit pertained to the breath of life. When Aristotle spoke about spirit (or soul) he meant that by virtue of which an organism is alive. To this day, when we speak of a person or a horse who is 'high spirited,' we mean full of life. Or when we speak of a person's spirit being broken, we mean that the person's will to live self-assertively has been extinguished - the life-force has been subdued. So, on this understanding, 'spiritual' would mean pertaining to the life force or the life principle.'

For my money, that is highly consistent with what many of you have said above, and elsewhere in dialogue, about how you now define it. Some arrived at that conclusion reclaiming their 'life' after exhaustion, after deciding to slough off "life (spirit) parasitic" forces. Still others arrived by logic, and research.

Whilst somewhat aware of the quantum approach, that is not one I have pursued, but I have greatly enjoyed some of you spelling that out, and I will now persue some texts on that to broaden my understanding.

Daryl

[Jeff_Ricks]

'Religion is primarily the domain of beliefs, rules, rituals.

I almost broke out laughing when I read the following from Webster's definition of religion:

"Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint,sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back "

To constrain, sanction, restrain, or tie back. No duh!! Someone once said, "The truth will make you free." It seems that what it must make you free from is religion.

Jeff

[peter_mary]

'Religion is primarily the domain of beliefs, rules, rituals. Authentic spirituality is reflected in how one lives and how one experiences existence, not in what one professes to believe; it is intrinsically individualistic rather than conformist. A person may use his or her religion to inspire a personal spiritual journey, a quest for greater consciousness, but religion itself does not necessarily imply any such quest. Indeed, it may support the illusion of spirituality while leading in the opposite direction - by demanding that consciousness be sacrificed to faith and threatening hell as punishment for thinking, or by ridiculing a person's struggle to make sense out of what is being taught. So, about any tenet one must ask: Does this support or constrict the active use of mind? Is this teaching addressed to my understanding or to my fears? Am I offered awareness or escape from the responsibility of awareness? The courage to raise and confront such questions is itself a spiritual achievement. It is consciousness committed to its own growth and self-actualisation."

Resonate with anyone's experience of Mormonism?

Daryl

This was beautiful...thank you so much for sharing it! Gadfry, I just have to say that I've had an infinitely more spiritual experience on this forum today than I have in a lifetime of Sundays! You have all made me stretch, made me think, and touched me...thank you!

Paul

[Born Free]

This was beautiful...thank you so much for sharing it! Gadfry, I just have to say that I've had an infinitely more spiritual experience on this forum today than I have in a lifetime of Sundays! You have all made me stretch, made me think, and touched me...thank you!

Paul

It is a thrill to see others warm to this take on spirituality as much as I did.

On a lighter note, I have often joked that I figure all my Sundays wasted in church meetings would have been better spent studying philosophy and watching and rewatching Monty Python's Life of Brian! :)

[Born Free]

The Branden discourse on spirituality help me bring into sharp focus why Mormonism now irks me so much.

If sanity and spirituality is getting the best possible grip on reality, and then moving our life and beliefs to get in line with reality, what is it when I insist that reality get into alignment with my beliefs?

Narcissism, faith, insanity, and either the absence of spirituality or its opposite?

Any group of people who:

Cannot let their history stand naked without reworking and sanitizing it

Finds it acceptable to launder the personal history of its leaders, and calls that faith building.

Can turn a blind eye to the abuse of the powerless.

Can launder massacres and even bury an opportunity to use modern forsensic science to analyse the evidence.

Spit in the eye of science.

has clearly got a problem with reality. It was not until I was thinking back over this thread the otehr night, that I saw how diametrically opposed to reality that Mormonism really is.

Daryl

[Born Free]

Connecting with someone's facade is a drag. I pushed the point that to relate to people has to begin with the respect for their divinity. People are here, not for us to control, but to be in awe of. It was a powerful session with a bunch of wet eyes.

Sooo, spirituality for me is a mystical process that defies words but cannot be missed when felt. For me it tends to involve 2 things. Growth and connecting with other people who are being real, or connecting to other sacrednesses.

Ed

Ed,

I just took the time to reread this. If only our psych departments had more people working out of that sort of integrity, experience, and capacity to mentor.

Sadly, the psychology department in our oldest university here is legend for the fragile egos, acting out pathetic power games.

A person only has to be touched by that sort of experince a few times and the mark left becomes indelible.

Daryl

[Born Free]

Final thought: If what we are is in fact “the sum of all that is and ever was” then what happens to us when we “die?”

Jeff

Jeff,

Remember all the emphasis that Mormonism placed upon "Where we come from, and where we are going?" I recall watching a 35mm slide show an squillion times that the missionaries used with footage of crowds walking at some Expo in the States, which implied that Mormons had THE ANSWER, whilst the great unwashed just wandered mindlessly, and will do so for eternity.

They offer elaborate explanations of:

Why we got born into Mormon families
Why some people had black skins
Elaborate divisions of degress of glory in post-mortal life
What sins were and were not forgivable.

(I always used to wonder at a God who could create a system in which two individuals who were just 1 percentage point apart in their graduation scores, but one makes Celestial and on Telestial. I could not that sort of a God even in my teens.)

You know how I feel about all that now. I couldn't give a rats'!

No one knows. Only the arrogant claim to have the answers. I loved a remark in Brandens book quoted above in which he speaks of the Dalai Lama - Tibetan Buddhist, "And yet, when asked in an interview why he did not talk about God, he replied that in his observation, people no more benefited their soul's development by preoccupying themselves with God than by obsessing about material possessions."

One does not have to be in fear of eternal punishment, or anticipate the big Gold Star in your copybook, to be able to rationalise the value of a moral existence in this life.

I love a Seneca quote re death:

'So death is having all these tries at me, is he? Let him, then! I had a try at him a long while ago myself.' 'When was this?' you'll say. Before I was born. Death is just not being. What that is like I know already. It will be the same after me as it was before me.'

Paranoia re death detracts from all the things we discovered we had coalessed (?) to above: life, integrity, taking some risks, being real, connecting, etc..

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they know quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?

Socrates -- Quoted in Plato's Apology

Daryl

[Jeff_Ricks]

I love a Seneca quote re death:

'So death is having all these tries at me, is he? Let him, then! I had a try at him a long while ago myself.' 'When was this?' you'll say. Before I was born. Death is just not being. What that is like I know already. It will be the same after me as it was before me.'



Holy smoke! How simple and how undeniable. Genius!

Jeff

[bigeddy]

Sadly, the psychology department in our oldest university here is legend for the fragile egos, acting out pathetic power games.

Daryl


The history of the Psych Dept. of Weber State University should be written some day. The school was founded as a Mormon institution. David O. McKay was one of its first presidents. The old psych dept. was full of Utah TBM's. Some left the church as they did grow but others stayed in and on and on. The last 3 years have seen 4 retirements of the "old gaurd." Since becoming a University (about 12 years ago) they pushed to get professors from outside Utah. So, we have an old gaurd Mormon bunch (dieing off) and new never-heard-of-the-WofW youngsters who marvel at some of the stupid questions they get asked. It is a kick to watch everyone (amidst the dancing egos) play around the edges of this. Fortunately I am the guy out at the Davis Campus full-time so I am not around all the BS. Our current dept. head is a BYU grad. part of the old gaurd and an analy retentive micromanager who never knows which end of her garmies goes over her head. It is fun to watch but from the distance I am out at the sattelite campus. Anycloser and I would be in trouble constantly. My mouth just goes off. (I really pissed off the dept. chair the day I told them that BYU had no right to be called a University. Our Jewish prof. asked me what it should be called. I responded "The Brigham Young Center for Moral Inbreeding." I'm still in trouble with the chair for that one.)

Ed

[nate]

Any group of people who:

Cannot let their history stand naked without reworking and sanitizing it

Finds it acceptable to launder the personal history of its leaders, and calls that faith building.

Can turn a blind eye to the abuse of the powerless.

Can launder massacres and even bury an opportunity to use modern forsensic science to analyse the evidence.

Spit in the eye of science.

has clearly got a problem with reality.

This not only accurately describes Mormonism, but the majority of the American population as well.


Hell, the majority of Earth's population!

[wescape]

Unfortunately I'll have to agree with you Nate...Pretty depressing huh?

[Born Free]

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

Albert Einstein - The World As I See It

[nate]

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

Albert Einstein - The World As I See It

Excellent Quote! Thanks.

[silverfox]

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death; let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.

Albert Einstein - The World As I See It

I never understood why the church thought we should be excited to be gods of our own galaxies, worlds, whatever. Like who would want that? That is a beautiful quote

[alive]

I am interested to see how others definine 'spirituality', since departing Mormonism.

I have observed some people throw the baby with the bathwater, and feel/think that the notion of spirituality is a package deal with religous.

Some of those people appeared to benefit when they found that the notion of spirituality is viable, even stronger, without religiousity.

Also what books, speakers, etc have shaped your definition, and is it still evolving?

Daryl

I'm attracted to all kinds of new-age spiritualities. I might define God as some kind of universal wholeness. I wonder if the closest we get to God is in a love/sexual relationship. Experiencing the divine in the union with another human being.

I'm interested in learning more about Ken Wilbur, I like Michael Talbot's book "The Holographic Universe"--he died so young and all the mind-body elements in his book somehow made that terribly ironic.

Jenny Wade's Transcendental Sex doesn't talk much about sex, but talks about the transcendent experience.

Another interesting one: Deutsch, David. The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes—and Its
Implications. New York: The Penguin Press, 1997.

Here's a quotation:

The colour of the Sun ten billion years hence depends on gravity and radiation pressure, on convection and nucleosynthesis. It does not depend at all on the geology of Venus, the chemistry of Jupiter, or the pattern of craters on the Moon. But it does depend on what happens to intelligent life on the planet Earth. It depends on politics and economics and the outcomes of wars. It depends on what people do: what decisions they make, what problems they solve, what values they adopt, and on how they behave towards their children. (184-85)

[Born Free]

Just a top up of this thread to store some useful resources in this reservoir.

Just last night I came across a listing for spirituality in The Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, which read: "Degree of involvement or state of awareness or devotion to a higher being or life philosophy".

A new site I found interesting and which helps expand ones thinking about the implication of the words 'spirituality' and 'religious' can be found at:

http://www.spiritualcompetency.com/

"The Spiritual Competency Resource Center provides access to online resources that enhance the cultural sensitivity of mental health professionals. Spirituality is now accepted as an important component of cultural competence for mental health professionals. These resources include online courses, guides to internet resources, and articles."

Here is another site, that tends to reclaim the world 'religious' from religions, pulling it back into 'natureal' or even Panthiestic directions. Well worth consideration FMHO:

http://www.religiousnaturalism.org/

Daryl