Thread: What is Spirituality to You?

Spirit has been given a transcendental application it did not begin with. Spirit is synonymous with the Hindu God Shakti, the feminine aspect of Shiva. Shakti represents energy or animation... essentially to me spirit means movement or change.

And to me, having a spiritual perspective means to observe the biggest picture you can see. When one looks at their life in a spiritual way, they are not caught in the highs and lows of their material expectations. It is not about whether or not you will find a good spouse, or be successful in your career and personal endeavors. It is about what grows from our trials and tribulations. One takes a spiritual viewpoint when they are able to see through the circumstances that currently surround them. When they are able to take life's obstacles in stride and instead of pondering why life is so cruel they ponder, "What does this mean?" But not necessarily with the belief that God put these obstacles in place for them to ascend to a higher state of being. One can, instead, look at what their actions mean in terms of society.

You see the ethos of society evolves through example. When one chooses to pursue ethical action rather than fruitful result and follows principle instead of opportunity, they are giving an example to their society as to what method life can be lived with. And in this sense, honor is a very rational sort of concept. For while someone can teach someone else through words, this only gives them a logical understanding. When one teaches another through habit, they witness the lesson and can more easily apply it to themselves. This is why literature has always been such a profound part of human culture. Our actions have a ripple that extends far beyond our narrow perception. Understanding this, and approaching life in terms of the bigger picture rather than being wrapped up in temporary, personal issues, one is thus looking at life in a spiritual way.

For instance I made a thread asking people to tell their Spiritual Story. And for some people, this is as simple as what denomination they belong to, possibly what karma or merit that have acquired . But to me it was an opportunity to look at my life based on how my perspective has evolved. It was a story about the defogging of the lenses.

I like that way of thinking of it, does this mean you don't believe in spirits in the supernatural sense then, like me?

I am ambivalent. It is of primary importance to me to remind people that spirit did not start off meaning anything transcendental. From there, if there is some sort of transcendental aspect as well, I attempt to remove duality from it. So in other words, I do not believe in a Spirit World which is definitively separate from the Corporeal World. I also do not believe in the Supernatural in the sense that I do not believe anything is above Nature. But I also believe in infinite complexity, which means in a sense I believe in infinite possibility, which means I do not believe Nature itself is entirely bound by causality. In fact I believe Causality puts too much emphasis on the accumulative presence of the past which puts the mind in an awkward position where it is always a product if its history.

But ponder the present moment right now. Not as a concept, but as this... thing that's happening right now. We are not trapped by our history at all. Eternity and infinite potentiality both exist right now. The birth of the universe is not in the past. It is right now, in this very moment. And so if your belief is that Nature implies causal reality, then I am forced to say your interpretation of the word is based in illusion, but if it were so then of course I would need some word like Supernatural to describe my perception. But because I think the common idealization of nature is wrong, I therefore do not think anything is Supernatural. Ghosts are not supernatural, nor aliens nor bigfoot nor Magic nor Angels nor Ether nor God. We may have different words for them, but our terminology often reveals our delusion. And it's important now, to recognize that when a guru explains reality is all an illusion, he is not claiming nothing is real. I don't even know where to begin on the concept of real. He is claiming that the way we think reality works, the model we have accumulated in our brains about what is... is false. For instance our language itself holds this trick that separates self and other, and none and verb. I(noun) dance(verb). But what is really happening? A Dance. There is no real separation. There is no real distinction between the one acting and the act itself. Our language is full of these little pot-holes where we gain a concept in our minds which does not properly define what is going on.

And the same problem comes into play with this concept of imagination and reality, these two separate worlds. People enjoy scoffing at Descartes' concept of duality, while clinging to their own version of duality. Only instead of calling it the spirit world, they ascribe to the dichotomy of real shit and fake shit. Where my view differs from the Newtonian is I do not regard the imagination as fake. The furthest I dare classify separation is by using words like manifest and possible. For instance I cannot materialize a million dollars in my hand right now. So it is not manifest. However, That doesn't mean the fantasy of a million dollars in my hand is a lie. And there is no definitive line between what I fantasize as having and what I actually have. There is, instead, a spectrum. A scalar field. Polarities. And my solution to the mind's attempt to classify everything is by shifting my perspective from categories to polarities. For nothing is a certain thing. Everything merely orbits about. I do not sit on a chair. I sit on something very much like a chair. But there is a distinction here. For what I sit on is unique, limbic and experiential. A chair is broad, cortexial and conceptual. And nothing which can be experienced can be contained by the concepts we use to symbolize them. Symbols and languages are meant for communication. They are not meant to be used to understand specifically what we experience. They are meant to be utilized to better enable us when we consider proper action. I classify this as a chair so that I can hold some confidence in my ability to sit on it. And for no other reason.

I think that it is just a part of us. Like, our inner self and maybe a bit beyond to what we don't completely understand yet.
But I liked your point of view.

i really don't label one thing as spiritual and one thing as not. to me, spirituality is just another label we cling to, to create some meaning, or some identity.

i think that a lot of the people who claim to be on some spiritual journey in search of truth, god, or enlightenment are really just on some self absorbed ego trip. but that's just my opinion.

I've always taken it as a matter of faith that I have, if not a "soul", at least some sort of buoyant core that will float no matter how high the water level of explanation rises. As I peel back the onion layers, however, I am starting to realize that no such thing is there in the deepest recesses. But somehow I'm still floating anyway.

Some interesting thoughts, thanks. I'm sure this will help me understand future discussions a lot better now I think

To respond to your intuition, dreams, imagination and visualisation, etc as a source of personal growth both inwardly and outwardly. Spirituality need not be 'transcendent' in the supernatural sense, but it is most definitely subjective and personal; It cannot be tested nor scrutinised objectively.

It is, in a vague sense, the flowering of the psyche.