Spirituality

[Piet]

People of Western society lack a sense of spirituality or a focus on ‘the soul’.

[Piet]

Last night, I wrote down some of the things that were said about spirituality. This is my own interpretation of what people said, so let me know if I understood you right!

Spirituality is, according to...

- Jurian:
Determining/knowing your mental condition. Spirituality tanscends us from our animal nature. It is striving to the higher/mental. Free will. To stop off (stilstaan), to dwell upon something, and to become conscious.

- Rik (in response to Jurian):
The mental is bound to the material, the mind is part of the body (monism). People who are in a spiritual state have been found to have more/quicker brain activity (sorry for the bad terminology).

- Jeffrey:
Spirituality is something that cannot be defined, but you can search it, -- and when you experience it, you will be aware of it. -- Still, even then, you won't be able to define it.
The condition in which you may attain spirituality is the following: give up the idea that everything is predictable/explainable; be open-minded to new ideas; new things will come to you, you will become aware of new ideas.

- Piet:
To me, spirituality is the same as being intensely conscious of something -- preferably something positive.

Overall, the theme of becoming aware/conscious emerged from the discussion. I believe that Jeffrey insists, however, that we should not try to pinpoint spirituality, as this is not possible, and that we should instead try to experience it.
Anyhow, for next week it is a good idea to come up with a working definition for spirituality, -- one upon which we can agree that more of it would be good for Western Society --, so that we can start brainstorming about how to achieve more spirituality next week!

[Jurian]

I'll try to shed some more light on my definition of spirituality.


The starting point of my definition is the mind. Without a mind one cannot be spiritual. Therefore nonliving matter can't be spiritual, neither can't plants.

1: One must have a mind to be spiritual.

The next step is finding out which minds are to be called spiritual. Animals have minds. But are they spiritual? Maybe. I do not know. Somehow I do know (or feel) that an ant is probably not spiritual. Maybe a dog is? I tend to think that complexity of a mind is related to the ability to be spiritual. The complexer the mind is, the more spiritual it can be.

2: The ability to be spiritual is related to the complexity of the mind

Ask yourself: can a baby be spiritual? What do you think? I don't know the answer. Why do I not know the answer? I think it is because I can't look in the baby's mind. So apparently somthing needs to happen in the mind in order to be spiritual.

3: Somthing needs to happen in the mind.

The ultimate question is of course: What is it that happens in the mind to be spiritual? At this stage I do not know.

Let's look at some people who might be spiritual: the dalai lama, maby the pope, philosofers perhaps, some artists, old people? Why do I think of these people? What do they have in common? I think that these people all take sime time in their lives to stand still and think.
Somehow I believe that people in a hurry can't be spiritual. If I think of non-spiritual proffessions I come up with things like lawyers, managers, administrators, bankers etc. The all have in common that the are constantly busy. Then again, I don't believe these people are unable to be spiritual. It's just that spiritualty somehow doesn't go hand in hand with hurrying.

4: One must be in a calm state to be spiritual.
5: Spiritualty is a state. People swith between being spiritual and not spiritual.

Subconclusion:
Your mind needs to actively do somthing while your in a calm state.

Up until this part my arguements are based on logic deduction of my own premisses. So the latter might be seen as a logical interpretation. For the next part it will be a bit harder to explain my thoughts. I shall now discuss "what" I think it is that makes a mind spiritual.

I see spirituality as the state in which the (human) mind sets itself free from the animalistic mind. It's funny how in latin there are two words for "mind": spiritus and animus. The latter word closely resembling the word "animal". I think that we humans somehow have gained the ability to step out of our humanity. For example: you are breathing at this very moment. But if you want to, you can swich off your inner auto-pilot and stop breathing. Have you ever realised we human are the only species who can do this? Funny isn't it.

One could perhaps say that we humans are "humaning" most of the time. Like a cow is "cowing" his entire life (meaning: doing cow-stuff). We humans are no different, except we are "humaning".

Now here comes the good part!

We humans can activly choose to stop humaning. To stop doing what our instincts tell us. To live our lives manually. This state of living manually, is what I believe is spirituality.

This approach explaines a lot of things:
1. For example, lawyers managers and bankers are commonly not perceived as spiritual people. Why: they are in a hurry, constantly on auto-pilot. They are "humaning" all the time. They might be smart people and might belong to the societal elite. But they're still humaning. For example a dog can be the alfa male, but he's still "dogging" the entire day.

2. Old people, theists, artists etc, are commonly perceived to be more spiritual. This might be because the live "slower" lives. The aren't busy all the time, but have time to think, to be conscious, to stop hummaning for a bit.

3. Confessional people are perceived to be more spiritual. Why? They take time to stand still and look inward. A lot of relegions also have fasting periods. This seems awfully similair to holding your breath doesn't it? The underlying principle is the same: stepping out of you humanness by not humaning for a period (not humaning being in this case: resisting the need to eat). Then, when the ramandan (for example) is over, people step back into their common life and start humanning again. Though, hopefully the are more aware of the little things in life the normaly take for granted.

Conclusion:

Spiritualy might be a state of mind in which you stop your auto-pilot for a while and actively (though in a calm state) look both inwars and outwards. When looking inwards you look at who you are without the animalistic part. When looking outwards, you actively try to stop taking things for granted.


This is it for now. I must confess it's a hard subject but it also feels good to talk about it. I noticed that during the discussion of past monday, somehow there was this special atmosphere. Special isn't exactly the good word. But I can't really find a better one at this point.

I hope my view on this topic helpes you in your way to becoming a more spiritual mind

[Chester]

Gedachtegang in discussie:

Jurian: Spiritualiteit kan je losmaken van het dierlijke of primale menselijkheid. Bijvoorbeeld: vasten is een mentale uitdaging door ons los te maken van de primaire behoeften. Een wil tot niet eten of drinken. Spiritualiteit heeft iets te maken met de vrije wil.

Rik: Is spiritualiteit niet het besef van hoe mooi het materialistische is. Daarbij staat het spirituele of magische niet los van de concrete materie, maar bevindt zich er juist in. Zie bijvoorbeeld het rouwritueel van olifanten.

Chester: Mensen hebben spiritualiteit. Bij dieren is dit nog onderweg.

Jurian:
- Hogere gedachteprofessen zijn geestelijk. Geest = spiritus
- (Lagere) animale driften zijn niet geestelijk.

Rik: Beide zijn materieel, en dus in het brein te vinden.

Jeffrey: Spiritualiteit is een proces van ontdekken.

Jurian: Spiritualiteit is een vorm van stil staan, zonder over te gaan op de automatische piloot en over te geven aan het haastige bestaan. Een soort zelfbewustzijn.

Rik: Als het een zelfbewustzijn is, betekent het dan dat hoe meer we bewust zijn (van de omgeving), hoe spiritueler we zijn? Een hoger bewustzijn = concentratie = meditatie = contemplatie

Chester vult dit aan met een vergelijking van de boeddhistische praktijk

Jeffrey: Het is juist een overgeven. – een referentie naar het woord ‘islam’, dat overgave (submission) betekent

Piet: Spiritualiteit is een hoedanigheid. In meer of mindere mate voel ik mij spiritueel. Bijvoorbeeld op een warme zomerdag, het bewustzijn intenser is.

Jurian: Als gradaties van het bewustzijn. Open-mindedness. Geest open gooien.

Jeffrey: Het is inderdaad een instelling van openstaan, als je dat bedoelt met bewuster worden of intenser beleven.

Jurian: Een moment van creativiteit.

Jeffrey: Ja, want dan komen er dingen tot je.

Piet: Het betreft een ontzettende onbevangen ontvankelijke toestand

Chester: creativiteit begrijpen we daarom als een inspireren, letterlijk: de geest binnen laten komen, letterlijk: in ademen

Rik: Het dierlijke is minder spiritueel omdat de neuronen in de hersenen minder fel vuren. Een kwantitatief meer en een kwalitatief harder vuren van deze neuronen zorgt voor een spiritualiteit bij mensen. In die zin is het gradueel.

Chester: Als ik het goed begrijp, brengt het losmaken van het ego (Jurian) en daarmee het bevrijden van concepten (Jeffrey), in een onbevangen toestand (Piet) waarin we contact hebben met of toegang hebben tot een groter geheel. Een toestand die we aan kunnen duiden als een hoge mate van zelfbewustzijn (Rik). Die toestand is een spirituele ervaring.

[Chester]

Indeed, animal derives from the latin word ‘animalis’, means having breath, which derives from the word ‘anima’, means breath. The male form of this word is animus, means the mind, intellect, spirit, breath.

In this way inhalation is another word for in-spiration. So, animals and humans (and in a way also plants) are living beings because they breathing. The jewish-christian tradition interpreted this in a way that when one being becomes alive, the soul flew into the body, where the soul is the breath of God. Nowadays we give the same expression when talking about the creativity of an artist, namely inspiration.

A spiritual experience, we could say an ‘inspiration’, bring us in contact with the tremendous texture or our existence. (As we live as and in a context, we need to see the broader texture, where from the con-text is narrowed and interwoven to). I would say that spirituality give us insight in where we come from and where we are going to, in the most broadest sense. Materialists and modern scientists would say that we are stardust: the body consists of atoms and molecules, where the entire universe consist of. Idealists argue it as an generative xenogamy of ideas. Christian, Jews and Muslims put God in charge of the creation of beings, and the future is an afterlife in heaven. The afterlife for the Hinduïsts is the reincarnation in concrete living beings. Buddhists point at the awakening (called ‘bodhi’) to oversee the circle of reincarnation (called ‘samsara’), and go beyond it through nirvana. Zen Buddhists and Taoists call it the realization of the wave that it is part of the sea.

[Emilian]

There have been a lot of interesting ideas on what spirituality is. My idea of what spirituality has changed during the evening. Where at first I thought spirituality was a part of religion, I now think religion is a part of spirituality. Or a way to get spirituality.

Instead of thinking of God, I now think of consciousness when thinking about spirituality. So spirituality is a level of consciousness in what we actively can think about what we are doing, why we are doing it, how we are doing it and what the effects are on our environment.

The difference between a nonspiritual person and a spiritual person then would be that a nonspiritual person would do X to get to Y, without thinking WHY. He would Continue this every day
A spiritual person would first critically think about his options. Then he would consciously make his decisions. It would look like X1,X2 X3 to Y4, Y5, Y6.

Then the difference between animals is that they lack the ability to choose. They eat because they need to eat. We (as humans) eat because we want to eat. (at least I think this is right.) So the ability to choose (Free will) is a part of spirituality.

So the conclusion of what I think that spirituality is: There must be a critical mind, with which we consciously make a decision, based on a Free Will.

[Piet]

So the conclusion of what I think that spirituality is: There must be a critical mind, with which we consciously make a decision, based on a Free Will.

But this definition does not specify what the critical mind, consciously, and with free will, makes a decision about that is an act of spirituality.

If I were to cousciously decide to put peanut butter on my sanwich this morning, instead of cheese, or sprinkles, or jelly, would I then at that moment be acting spiritually?

I think, what you defined above are the conditions under which spirituality may exist. Today, however, I spoke to someone who defined spirituality not by the process, but by the object: spirituality is the act of thinking (consciously, critically, with Free Will) about the big questions of life.

So far, we've focused on the process of spirituality, which came down to acting consciously. I would like to add that spiritual thought must also have an object: thinking or acting consiously is not a sufficient definition for spirituality -- we must also define what the conscious thinking is about or what the conscious acting relates to. For me, this "what" could be the incomprehensibility of life: the question of the big "Why?" -- Why do we exist? Why are things the way they are: thinking consciously about these questions, finding personal answers, and being able to exercise Free Will as the result of having found these answers, may be what I would call spirituality.