Being Spiritual

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Over the years, if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me how I can be spiritual without being religious, I'd be retired and living on my own island by now! For us, our spirituality is part of us and doesn't recognize a certain day of the week, a building, or sacred text. You may have seen a bumper sticker that said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience”. I love that.

So, are all people spiritual in some sense? I hope that after reading further you will be able to answer this question with a comfortable “YES”.

The problem, of course, is how you define spiritual. I know, it sounds like Clinton saying “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” So why dwell on this confusing word “spirit” ? Because it’s a useful term with resonances in great and wise traditions. The problem with this sort of discussion is that it tends to throw the baby out with the bath water. My intention is to freshen and balance spirit’s meaning between the wisdom of ancient intuitive thinking and current knowledge. I also like the idea of reclaiming it for modern secular use.

We often use the word spirit in secular vernacular to mean a general quality of a person’s demeanor: “He’s in poor spirits.” We all know exactly what it means. We know that something is causing that “poor spirit”. You could argue it’s the same as saying “He’s an unhappy person right now.” But what is unhappy about him? Is it his mind, his body? The word spirit fits because it describes something else, neither mind nor body alone. I propose that spirit is a relationship or connection between parts, between mind and body, between self and other. This idea can be expanded further.

Fear seems to be a primary reason people turn to religion. I have many fears. I fear failure. I fear rejection. I fear being judged wrongly by others. I fear hate from others. I fear loneliness. Believing in god gives solace that you are never alone, that you are always loved. We all suffer from the misconception that we are separate from others and that we have to “fit in” to be accepted. So how do we deal with the issue of fear of loneliness?

Individuality is the hallmark of free society. We are encouraged to be unique, new, daring, different. But something gets lost in all that separateness: our connection to each other. Think for a moment of the worst pain you have ever suffered. With a little imagination, you can picture someone else on earth suffering as much or much worse. Imagine the love you wish for, then know that someone else suffers the same need. Keeping these little awareness's close to the heart through a day sooths the emptiness of separateness. With individualism as the pinnacle of freedom, we tend to forget these simple connections. Boundaries of thought between people create loneliness, not being alone.

So it is with the spirit of living. It is neither yours nor something separate from you, but an interaction, a relationship between you and the world around you. It is a coaxial cable connection to the universe, a direct link to all that is and is possible.

The problem is, our natural spirit is often damaged, or at least obscured. The various trappings of life’s maintenance, cultural oppressions, poor upbringing, physical distractions, ego, desire and self-deception cause myriad malfunctions and disconnections. It’s as if the “software” to life is damaged by various “viruses”. The usual suspects are judgment, self-deception, hubris, attachment, fear and ignorance. Add to that habits of unclear thinking and living, or the misfortune of traumatic experience, and one faced a veritable minefield of obstacles to experiencing a clear spirit. Luckily, science, psychology and modern meditative self-examination are valuable tools for clarifying spirit. So are the connections experienced through art, poetry, music and the beauty of nature.

But how do we find time to do all this growing in a short life?  To religious people, the sense of the finality of death is a problem dealt with by simply having faith. I don’t really know if I fear the end of my life, but I understand that it's part of the cycle of living. I want to accomplish so much before then! I don't need to torture myself over whether I've been faithful enough to receive salvation and a pass key to the gates of heaven. When my time is up, I guess I'll find out if there is something beyond life or not, but in the mean time I've got to have a different sort of faith, and that is believing in truth: in being honest with myself in dealing with the most important aspect of my life, and that is the fact that I will die some day. This encourages me to live my life fully, and not let one single day go to waste!

Thich Nhat Hahn brilliantly used the following poem to illustrate the futility of waiting for an afterlife to experience living. We need not fear our separateness from others, but rejoice in what we can share today.

Our True Heritage

"The cosmos is filled with precious gems.

I want to offer  a handful of them to you this morning. Each moment you are alive is a gem, shining through and containing earth and sky, water and clouds

It needs you to breathe gently for the miracles to be displayed. Suddenly you hear the birds singing, and the pines chanting, see the flowers blooming, the blue sky, the white clouds, the smile and the marvelous look of your beloved

You, the richest person on Earth, who have been going around begging for a living, stop being the destitute child. Come back and claim your heritage

We should enjoy our happiness and offer it to everyone

Cherish this very moment. Let go of the stream of distress and embrace life fully in your arms"

Written by Thich Nhat Hanh

Most spiritual traditions refer to something which encompasses All. With growing awareness, we begin to know that we are a part of something much larger than ourselves. We can sense and fathom a connection and unity between all things. I timidly dare to call this great spirit as an extension of the individual one. Here again, a hybrid relationship of scientific humanism with intuitive spirituality can lead us forward. We know that we came from and will return to some common pool, since our matter only changes forms. So, we are from it and of it and will return to it. Scientifically, the atoms are barely differentiated between earth, life and sky. Boundaries blur further.

The wisdom of Buddhism teaches that our suffering is caused by attachment to things, time and ego. Ironically, Buddhism’s ultimate goal is to break the illusion of separateness by dissolving the illusion of ego. Things, time and ego are necessary to life, but damaging to spiritual health.

Taoist thinking highlights the unity of opposites: good cannot exist without bad, self without other. Again, relationships. These empirical truths are often elusive to our clinging, categorizing natures. My intention in calling these elusive goals spiritual is to get beyond the clunkiness of analytical thinking and begin to gain a deeper sense of intuition and feelings. Our lives are empty without them.

Spirit is a poetic relationship between awareness and experience, between knowledge and intuition, identity and mystery, connection and separateness. When we embrace our spiritual gifts, our true, human natures can blossom.

So go ahead and let go of the stream of distress and embrace life fully in your arms! It is for this life that you were born. It is for this reason that life has called you to read these words! Return from this moment changed. 

Amen my sisters and brothers!

(With gracious permission from Garnet David at www.glitteringstew.com )

For more reading on this subject, please check out this Stonyhill Newsletter. Their website and periodic newsletters are excellent!