Are You Spiritual?

[DWill]

Just curious this Saturday morning: if you are asked if you are "spiritual," how do you respond? If you respond in the negative, how do others appear to take this?

Of course, you could always answer the way I hope I will next time: "What the hell do you mean?"

[geo]

Yes, good question. It's similar if someone asks if I'm atheist. I feel I first have to come to terms on a definition. Otherwise we would very likely not be talking about the same thing.

But the term "spiritual" does have faith-based connotations. It's heavily entrenched in a believer's vocabulary to mean faith in God. I do consider myself a spiritual person in many ways, but it bears almost no resemblance to what a believer perceives as "spiritual." So I like your tactic to just immediately ask the person what they mean by "spiritual?"

[Dexter]

I meditate every day, so in the same way Sam Harris is, I'm very interested in "spiritual" experiences. I think of it as a sort of mental training, and haven't been doing a daily routine for long. But I'm wary of the word "spiritual" because of its connotations with either religion or with New Age, Deepak Chopra-type nonsense.

There's a long tradition among mystics, meditators, etc. of achieving a feeling or sense of oneness with the universe and transcending the sense of self (not something I can speak to first-hand I'm afraid). Obviously it has been interpreted in a religious or quasi-religious way, but it could also be thought of in purely scientific terms -- after all, we are made of stardust. Someone we know might say, well if you're an atheist then it's all meaningless anyway. From a certain perspective, that's right, but it betrays quite a lack of imagination and ironically dismisses the very "spiritual experiences" they might be trying to defend.

Here's a talk about science and spirituality that basically gives that point of view.
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxCamb ... mbridge%22

And here's Harris on the word "spiritual"
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/a-pl ... irituality

He's coming out with a book on the subject that I will be quite interested to read.

[sonoman]

It's ironic but true that the theist and self-professed prophesy bearer of God is the one bringing the scientific proof of the End Times arrival for Buddhism and all Eastern meditation based religions seeking transcendent consciousness by ego elimination using meditative techniques. I predict this logical conclusion will become established throughout the intellectual world re the spiritual or philosophical authority of Buddhism: Buddhism relies on severe brain manipulation to achieve its goal of egoless oceanic bliss consciousness. Brain scientists studying brain scans of meditating Buddhist monks have found there is a one-to-one correlation between what the monks reported as their progress towards the nirvana or Buddha Mind and their individual abilities to shut down electrical activity in their brain's sense of self center located in the parietal region. The more they could stop electrical activity in their brain's sense of self center and shunt electrical activity to their frontal lobes where higher consciousness takes place and where also bliss consciousness/pleasure centers are located in the right frontal lobe, the closer they thought they were progressing towards nirvana, Buddha Mind. Buddha Mind therefore is a brain state in which the brain's sense of self is dysfunctional, an area deliberately deadened by meditative techniques to achieve "enlightenment" and avoidance of psychic pain by ego removal experiencing it.

Human beings have been trying for thousands of years various methods of avoiding psychic pain that comes with every life as does psychic happiness although not nearly as much making it far more precious. Drugs were found to do the job if only temporarily and with undesired side effects. Buddha found a meditative way to drastically alter the brain's mentality by effectively tranquilizing the brain's sense of self center where our sense of self in time and space is located and it seems our egos too because when it's deactivated people report the ego-less oceanic feelings and sense of reality, right-brain stuff. It is also hard to navigate when this brain center is shut down which is why walking Buddha mind is more difficult to achieve and one sees thousands of reclining or sitting Buddhas with sleepy eyes. I'm reading a book about Tibetan monks where they are known to break arms and legs or worse when walking alone meditating and losing their otherwise excellent sense of balance on dangerous narrow trails.

The Fatal Flaw of Buddhism is now exposed by science: drastic brain manipulation to achieve a single brain state in which a rather important brain function is deliberately disabled. The question immediately arises: Is a brain in which a deliberate hole is created really any brain to follow it's philosophy of a meaningless Void existence, i.e a projection of that empty hole in the head outward to all reality? I don't think so. Reality is highly complex for us now and we need whole brains to deal effectively with complex reality, not ones disabled where a portion is not working at all. I think Buddhism creates an illusion of higher consciousness because it does increase frontal lobe stimulation--but at a huge sacrifice, virtually the same one as do psychedelic drugs which also bring higher consciousness and immense bliss experience as well. So I do make the prophesy that future generations will not be idolizing the Buddha as do ours because Buddha's one-trick pony ride is now exposed. I've only connected the logical dots, not even having any special revelation about it but like most of my factual information, God leads me to the right places to discover the reasons why I am a follower of the Spirit of Christ and not, say, a Buddhist, or an atheist.

[Dexter]

I'm reading a book about Tibetan monks where they are known to break arms and legs or worse when walking alone meditating and losing their otherwise excellent sense of balance on dangerous narrow trails.

What is the book?

I've never heard of that before, although I suppose if you literally spend all day every day sitting in meditation, often in complete isolation, then there may be some effects on your body.

[DWill]

I think of my father, who's now almost 89 and has had Alzheimers for about 8 years. As far as I or anyone can tell, this guy has never had a "spiritual" thought, if by that we mean speculating about a god, thinking about transcendence, living on a "higher" plane, focusing on his inner experience, or whatever. He is someone who has been a great friend to many people and who embodies for me the quality of integrity, without ever saying a word about such a quality. I guess he's a typical Yankee in many ways. I want to either claim that he, too, is spiritual, or say that spirituality is just some optional thing that nobody really needs. In the Bible and the scriptures of the other major religions, the Golden Rule might be the highest spiritual as well as moral teaching. The two could be the same.

[sonoman]

I'm reading a book about Tibetan monks where they are known to break arms and legs or worse when walking alone meditating and losing their otherwise excellent sense of balance on dangerous narrow trails.

What is the book?

I've never heard of that before, although I suppose if you literally spend all day every day sitting in meditation, often in complete isolation, then there may be some effects on your body.

Bone Mountain by Eliot Pattison. The brain's sense of self center is responsible for our navigation ability and I think messing with it as Buddhist meditation does, is why this would happen. I think Westerners can get a good perspective on how a thoroughly Buddhist society thinks and goes about their business of living within a spiritual framework wherein most every activity is filled with hidden spiritual meaning. One can see why Chinese Commies would go bananas over a Tibetan family spending 24/7/365 days of the year taking turns at four hours apiece to spin a prayer wheel to invoke good deities and repel demons. Tibet is a classic clash of left brain dominated peoples, Communist Chinese atheists, and right brain dominated Tibetans totally engrossed with spiritual forces behind most everything. I hate to say it but I believe it's true. Tibetan Buddhism is not really the best religion for providing a meaningful existence when it cannot deal successfully with its adversaries. A smarter man than the Dalai Lama in my opinion would have not allowed Mao to seize control of Tibet by knowing in advance the inevitable conflict between Tibetan Buddhism and Communist ideology and taking steps to prevent China from invading Tibet and doing whatever they want there without any outside objection that counters their totalitarian genocidal aims for Tibetan society.

[Interbane]

I hate to say it but I believe it's true.

Yeah, you're sort of a belief slut, the more ridiculous it is, the more you're apt to believe it!

[Vishnu]

My position is more or less the same as Dexter's post above. I'm fascinated by these experiences and would be very interested in having some of them myself to see what they're all about, but I see no need to attach anything mystical to them. I'm especially curious to one day possibly have one of these "kundalini" awakenings.

I don't meditate myself, mostly because living where I do it's difficult to find a place and time that is quiet enough and distraction free enough to do so consistently. But I do occasionally experiment with psychedelics and have had some pretty profound trips that do make me wonder about the nature of reality.

[youkrst]

I think of my father, who's now almost 89 and has had Alzheimers for about 8 years. As far as I or anyone can tell, this guy has never had a "spiritual" thought, if by that we mean speculating about a god, thinking about transcendence, living on a "higher" plane, focusing on his inner experience, or whatever. He is someone who has been a great friend to many people and who embodies for me the quality of integrity, without ever saying a word about such a quality. I guess he's a typical Yankee in many ways. I want to either claim that he, too, is spiritual, or say that spirituality is just some optional thing that nobody really needs. In the Bible and the scriptures of the other major religions, the Golden Rule might be the highest spiritual as well as moral teaching. The two could be the same.

yes, i have thought that all the different traditions and systems are metaphors or ways of talking about certain aspects but that a person who is engaged in the real thing may have little need of a system to describe it as they are bust just getting on with the thing that the system is only a method of description for.

like any method of description it can possibly help or possibly hinder the actual thing it is trying to describe in language.

i have definitely met people who seem to be getting on just fine without religion and also met people where religion is killing them.

as a personal example, joe campbells way of talking about the various facets of mythologies helped largely in undoing the damage literalist fundamentalism (a distortion) caused me.

"spiritual" is another word like "god" it can mean different kinds of things ranging from well adjusted, at peace, content, all the way through to mystic visions, incredible dreams, then there is ritual, and practice that can be from funny to bizarre through to downright dangerous, and on and on all the way to completely insane and broken. all of this in one word "spiritual"

how the hell anyone can be reasonably expected to know what a person means when they use the word "spiritual" or "god" is beyond me.

i often think the same thing though when people ask "how are you" i immediately start thinking "what the hell do you mean?" financially, physically, musically, erotically which particular aspect of my current state do you want my opinion on and why the hell would you take my word for it, i'll probably lie, and i'm the worst judge because i'm stuck in here, judge for yourself, it should be obvious enough or are you too lazy to do the work, or are you just asking because it's polite and you in fact dont give a rats, or is it genuine interest, damn it now i'll have to judge etc etc !!!!

ahhh the thing between our ears what blessing and yet a curse also depending on the training it's recieved