Nature Of Spiritual Reality:
What I have been calling “spiritual realism” has developed over a few decades of direct engagement in the nature and meaning of spirituality. Even though spirituality has ceased to be ‘mainstream flavor of the month’ I know that it is deeply important to many thoughtful and creative people.
There are people who come to the spiritual cold; which is to say from a background of intelligent agnosticism or even atheism. Yet I think it is true that most spiritually concerned individuals come from a background of religion however loosely defined. Whatever the inner backdrop to a renewed concern with spirituality may be, the fact remains that false religiosity will tend to intrude itself into the awareness of spirituality. This is almost invariably due to familial or cultural religious conditioning. There is also the fact that many people are actually into religion but for various reasons- all of them bad- choose to call their religious preoccupations ‘spirituality’.
Religiosity in any form is a real obstacle to genuine spirituality. Spiritual realists reject religiosity, superstition, and comfort zone beliefs in all their forms. A vital living spirituality does not require tradition of any kind to prop it up. The truth of this statement becomes obvious the moment we realize that authentic spirituality is grounded in the eternal which is of course “ever present everywhere”.
The fact is that whatever state you are in as you read this; you are invariably in a modification of a spiritual state of being and awareness. A corrupt religious tradition tells us that we must do something in order to become spiritual beings but nothing could be further from the truth. If you were not already and always a spiritual being nothing in this world or any other could turn you into one. Fair enough that’s obvious too.
Now you may be asleep to the real nature of yourself, you may be strung out on distractions, sex, drugs, consumerism, or any number of mind numbing existential dead ends. But in all probability if you are feeling spiritually obstructed; the chances are that you haven’t learned yet how to think clearly about spirituality. Yet you must know that such a clear spiritual thinking is possible or you wouldn’t be surfing spiritual websites and blogs. Unless you just stumbled in the door are about to stumble/click right back out again.
By pointing to ‘clear spiritual thinking’ I am in no way advocating any kind of “spiritual science”; one pernicious version of which is popular with certain misguided Hollywood celebrities. Neither am I advocating the “spiritual scientific thinking” of nineteenth century brain washing cults or designer theologies like anthroposophy, or cabalism. The whole notion that by adopting a ‘spiritual ideology’ the answers to real spiritual questions can be found is patently absurd. This too must be obvious.
And what is more obvious yet is that none of these bogus ‘spiritual paths’ have made even a dent in our collective trance-tragic. If you are looking for a new pleasure machine, best thing is to stay away from spirituality all together or it will really mess you up beyond all recognition. If on the other hand you are striving to get to the heart of the matter of being human and aware that you are mortal, then it is only authentic spirituality that can adequately address that crucial all important concern.
The best approach is to assume that everything you think you know about spirituality is probably wrong. I do this at least once a day. Clears the mind and allows the one state of awareness that can help, to spring into focus. It is called “beginners mind”, not relying on anything you think you know, but simply allowing yourself to become totally aware of the state you are in right now. It can also be called “choice-less-awareness”. I call it “the here now” beyond conditioning, reaction, need, fear, hope, desire- fill in the blank.
In this “here now” I simply am the way I am, things just simply are the way they are. It all may be horribly difficult complicated and painful or dull boring and inane or apple pie nice and splendid. The main thing is that I am not allowing any outside authority, belief system or ideology, to decide what my existence “here-now” means to me. If you get this you see that it is radical in the deepest way because from “here-now” nothing can manipulate me, not science religion or philosophy and least of all politics and public opinion. And this is the beginning of spiritual reality. And this is the beginning of real freedom.
If you have arrived here from Spiritual Reality Now you were trying to read my webmaster notes at that site. I set up this weblog in order to have a more direct and convenient means of writing updates. One of the other reasons for this weblog is to make it more convenient for you to express your thoughts and comments.
This entry was first posted on Thursday, January 12th, 2006 at 3:09 pm: On theseus at labyrinth
I’m sitting alone in the dark, the aftermath of a day of violent thunderstorms passing over Lake Huron in April. The power has been out for five hours now and the storms continue to surge across in waves. It was okay in the daylight, when I could pick up a book and sit in the overcast light of the window, but the light, even in the daytime is no good for drawing or painting, something I love to do when I come up here to my retreat. The computer power is at a premium, just a few minutes left of the battery, before even this shuts down. Then what? I can’t see to write in pencil and I’m not tired enough to go to bed and sleep yet.
There is only one thing left to do, when this internal laptop battery is finished……. Meditation.
Isn’t this crazy? I will be forced into meditation; I feel something pleasurable in the thought that I have to step out of the routine, out of the distraction, this is it. I won’t be able to produce anything, not even writing or reading or drawing.
The battery went off and I spent the night in quiet meditation and sleep. Thunderstorms continued to roll overhead and woke me up several times, then at three a.m. the light in my bedroom burst on as the power was restored. I had formulated some questions and observations in my mind during meditation and every time I awoke I tried to reestablish my meditative thought.
Several years ago during an intense period of spiritual training, my teacher suggested meditation for two hours every day at the same time, without fail, for forty days. It was the beginning of many changes in my awareness, one of which was the ability to observe the Personal Mind or Separate self.
“In other words you have transcended Personal Mind the 4th and become the active witness of your own mind in action. You are no longer the passive recipient of information but have become actively engaged in co-creating what you are thinking about. And you are fully aware that this is what you are doing.” – Spiritual Realism Awareness States
I observed that restlessly looking for something to do is a habit. I was thinking about how most of our day is spent in habitual thinking. The mind finds a certain way or pattern that seems to be effective and goes on automatic pilot, distracted for the most part of the day with things it has deemed as important to do. It’s good not to have to think much about the mundane routines of life; however it is a problem when we move through our whole day as routine. It’s a problem because we are not in the creative space of awareness that allows us to move with uncontrived naturalness; to act in unconditioned truth; to be free of conditioning and fear; to be in a space of Self Awareness.
It’s interesting to see how the separate self feels secure and satisfied with a routine and predictable day. It doesn’t like changes, unexpected and unplanned occurrences. This Self that calls itself Star has built up an idea of how it should be in the world. This has occurred through a series of events that happen to everyone; birth, family conditioning, environment and Karma. That Self, sustains the strength of itself by keeping the mind in the mundane routine predictable patterns of thought, actions and reactions throughout the day. We believe this to be our real selves and we energize this Lower/Separate self, by maintaining our attention in that Self. Attention/directed awareness is energy.
We have the power to choose what we give our attention to. Release the mind from its mundane routine and it reacts with energy. Awareness is energy.
It is my experience that the soul reacts with joy when this occurs. It’s a yearning fulfilled; a yearning for something in our lives with purpose, something that is real, and something exciting about to happen. Seeing the ego/lowermind/separate self and acting with intent is what is meant by applied spiritual realism. It can’t be learned by reading and intellectualizing about it. It is realized by doing; by being; by becoming aware. And this, my friends is the start of a spiritual journey and a new way of being in the world.
Warmest regards to you from Sharon