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Transformation and Transcendence of the Self: What is Spirituality? Before we continue to explore the different aspects of the world it will be useful to pause and define both the idea of spirituality and the Spiritual worldview. One of the central themes of this book is that we need to not only recognize that wider worldviews are available to us, but that we must transcend our current worldviews for these deeper ways of knowing if we are to have any hope of avoiding the various dangers that our current ways of perceiving are creating in the world. Therefore, even if we are able to supplant the Modern and Traditional worldviews with an Integral worldview on individual and collective levels, we will still have Spiritual worldviews waiting to be discovered and passed into. "Spirit or God or Highest Reality is the phenomenon that allows us to transcend the human tendency to act out on others the pain that has been acted upon us and thus to break the 'repetition compulsion.' To speak of that capacity to transcend and break the repetition compulsion and become embodiments of generosity and love and goodness is to talk about Spirit. Our meaning in life comes from being embodiments of that Spirit, elements of the transcendent consciousness of the universe as it moves to actualize goodness and beauty."
"When appearances and names are put away and all discrimination ceases, that which remains is the true and essential nature of things and, as nothing can be predicated as to the nature of essence, it is called the "Suchness" of Reality. This universal, undifferentiated, inscrutable Suchness is the only Reality… and when all things are understood in full agreement with it, one is in possession of Perfect Knowledge."
"Beyond the sense is the mind, beyond the mind is the intellect, higher than the intellect is the Great Atman [Soul], higher than the Great Atman is the Unmanifest. Beyond the Unmanifest is the Person, all-prevading, and imperceptible."
"Divinity is that which was there before the appearance of heaven and earth, and which gives form to them; that which surpasses the yin and the yang, yet has the quality of them. This Divinity is thus the absolute existence, governing the entire universe of heaven and earth, yet at the same time, it dwells within all things, where it is called spirit; omnipresent within human beings, it is called mind…. Itself without form, it is Divinity which nurtures things with form."
Stars are the silent children of creation; sparkling miniature suns, swimming in ebony. When I was a young boy, growing up in rural Michigan, it was my responsibility to take the dogs out for their nightly walk. More often than not the dogs would run off down the dirt road we lived on in search of some faint olfactory treasure that I had no hope of sensing. The road went on for a mile or more of wooded darkness, our house being the last small signpost of civilization. I would run through the pitch black night hoping not to trip and fall, knowing that the dogs could hear me as well as they could see me, though I could gain no apprehension of them until stumbling upon them in a rush. Finally bending their desires to my will, we'd walk back toward the house. As we walked I would stare up through the branches of the trees at the glowing mass of stars that blanket the country night. An avid fan of science fiction and Carl Sagan's Cosmos, I knew that there were "billions and billions" of stars and even as many galaxies filling an unimaginably unfillable universe. I knew that I could not fathom the expansiveness and depth of the cosmos, but walking beneath the mantle of distant suns, the dogs licking my hands, I would stare up into the face of infinity and try none-the-less. A feeling would wash over me, slight, and nearly imperceptible. A feeling I did not label at the time, but that I later came to think of as spiritual. It was not a profound mystic experience of union with the universe, simply a deep sense of connection with everything. A feeling that, while I was an infinitesimally small part of the cosmos, I was an important part, because I was aware that I was part of it. By the time I reached the front steps, the notion had faded, but the sense of it continued to cling to me. Nearly everyone has had an experience they would describe as spiritual, like those I encountered walking the dogs on star-filled nights. Like most people, for many years, I thought of myself as spiritual without ever really knowing what I meant by the word. It was only when I began reading the sacred texts of the world's wisdom traditions and the writings of modern transpersonal psychologists that I began to have an inkling of what I meant by spirituality. And this inkling only grew into an understanding when I began a regular practice of meditation. And so, today I have a simple definition of what I mean when I use the word spiritual. To me, the word spiritual implies a direct realization of the numinous or the Divine, the apprehension on some level of Spirit as the Ground of all Being. It denotes a shift of our normal way of "seeing" the world and a transcendence of our separate sense of ego-self for a wider grasp of reality. It is an experience, on one level or another, of the Divine, or Spirit, as an inseparable wholeness, manifesting as the entire kosmos, moment by moment, in a timeless now. Not surprisingly, it is an explicitly mystic worldview. As theologian Paul Tillich pointed out, mysticism "plunges directly into the ground of being and meaning, and leaves the concrete, the world of finite values and meanings, behind."(i) It does not forget this concrete world, but transcends it. In its highest form, is an experience of the nondual awareness of the singularity of the universe found most clearly in the superlative practices of the Advaita Vedanta and Buddhist paths. By consequence, I define spirituality as a path or practice that leads to a spiritual awareness, such as those mystic paths that are the revelatory core of all the major religions. Psychologist Roger Walsh explains that: "The ultimate aim of spiritual practices is awakening; that is, to know our true Self and our relationship to the sacred. However, spiritual practices also offer numerous other gifts along the way….Gradually, the heart begins to open, fear and anger melt, greed and jealousy dwindle, happiness and joy grow, love flowers, peace replaces agitation, concern for others blossoms, wisdom matures, and both psychological and physical health improve."(ii) These brief
definitions of Spirit and spirituality are by no means exhaustive, but
this is the way I will use these words throughout the book. Do not worry
if these definitions are not immediately clear to you, they will be
returned to and explored in more depth later on. And for absolute clarity,
I am not claiming any great spiritual realization on my part. I am not
enlightened or anything close to it. I am merely acknowledging that
there are worldviews wider and deeper than my own and trying to provide
a clear explanation of why we need them, what they look like, and how
we might all attain them. Footnotes i) Paul
Tillich, The Courage to Be, p.186.
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