175. Spirituality

"The Power of Wind and Sun"

Today we are going to an event called “Cafe Spirituality” hosted by Vancouver Community Mental Health Services (VCMHS). They have been carrying out groups and questionnaires on spirituality in order to create something of this nature for mental health services. Today they will present some of the themes that have come up over the past year and ask us to discuss them. Sounds interesting n’est-ce pas?

Lately we have been thinking more about spirituality and what it means to us. Reading Scott Peck’s book “The Road Less Traveled and Beyond”, of course, has stirred up discussions within on the topic. And for us, it’s always an interesting thing to talk about. So often we Webers forget how important it is and how much the awareness and discussion of it is inspiring and exciting. It has been that way for decades.

We met David, Graham’s father, back when we were 18 and he was 24, and he often talked about his own views of spirituality and philosophy. The seed was already in us and David helped it to grow. In our twenties, we began reading Baba Ram Dass’ book “Be Here Now” and Krishnamurti’s “Think on These Things”. We got very excited about what they were saying. Over the years David and us have revisited the subject time and time again and continue to have long discussions (we mean hours) about philosophy and spirituality. In some way it feels soul cleansing.

So we look through the books we have to find the meaning of spirituality. First, “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche, published in 1992. He talks about the purpose of following a spiritual path.  “All the spiritual teachers of humanity have told us the same thing, that the purpose of life on earth is to achieve union with our fundamental, enlightened nature. ... There is only one way to do this, and that is to undertake the spiritual journey, with all the ardour and intelligence, courage and resolve for transformation that we can muster.” We like that – “our fundamental, enlightened nature”. I wonder if this is similar to our goal “to be all who we are”. If it is then maybe who we are is, in essence, fundamentally enlightened.

Rinpoche goes on to say that following a spiritual path is not just for our own personal gain, but for the very survival of our world; “a large proportion of the human race must seek the path of wisdom if the world is to be preserved from the internal and external dangers that threaten it. In this time of violence and disintegration, spiritual vision is not an elitist luxury but vital to our survival.”  So spirituality is also about attaining wisdom.

Rinpoche also says “To follow the path of wisdom has never been more urgent or more difficult. Our society is dedicated almost entirely to the celebration of ego, with all its sad fantasies about success and power, and it celebrates those very forces of greed and ignorance that are destroying the planet.” And “the entire society in which we live seems to negate every idea of sacredness or eternal meaning.”

Ah ... meaning. Isn’t that what one of the things that spirituality is about? A context for life and everything that happens in it? A framework to guide us on our path?

In “The Myth of Freedom” Chögyam Trungpa says that “true spirituality is not a battle; it is the ultimate practice of non-violence. We are not regarding any part of us as being a villain, an enemy, but we are trying to use everything as a part of the natural process of life.” He is talking about our tendency to see things in black and white, good or bad; that many of us think that to be spiritual we must give up our ego and its desires. But Trungpa is saying we must use everything. We agree. In order to follow a spiritual path, in order to have a context for our daily life, we must look at everything and accept everything as part of the path. Disappointment, joy, depression, ecstasy, anxiety, anger, disillusionment, despair and on. For us spirituality is about everything. It is not just religion, or nature, or meditating. It is also technology, and war, and the mundane parts of our life such as washing dishes. Encompassing the whole.

The table of contents of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” by Shunryu Suzuki has three parts – Right Practice, Right Attitude, and Right Understanding. We think that those titles encompass what spirituality is about as well. We have to practice and be aware of spirituality daily, and we need to have a certain attitude about it. It is very much about our thinking of it, the kinds of thoughts we have direct us off or on a spiritual path. Finally, we must come to some understanding of this path we follow and how we see spirituality for ourself.

Isn’t spirituality also about the soul? We have two books by Gary Zukav – “The Seat of the Soul” and “The Heart of the Soul”. In “The Seat of the Soul” Zukav says that “The conscious path to authentic power requires recognition of the nonphysical dimensions of the human being, of the soul, and a growing knowledge of what the soul is and what it wants.” So spirituality is also about something beyond the physical, beyond the intellectual, beyond emotions.

It’s possible that VCMHS is trying to bring in “spiritual psychology”. We’re not sure when it all started but there have been groups on mindfulness available for people who suffer with mental health issues in Vancouver for a number of years. The “mainstream” West is starting to pay more attention to the more Eastern philosophies and ideas. Zukav says that “Spirituality will be at the core of spiritual psychology. Spiritual psychology will be oriented toward spirituality and spiritual crises will be considered legitimate sufferings. Spiritual psychology will trace and understand the functional relationships between karma, reincarnation, intuition and spirituality.”

In 1990, before our multiplexity emerged, I thought that I was going through some kind of spiritual emergency à emerge + urgency. Something trying desperately to surface within. I started to see things that were happening to me, in my mind, as some kind of spiritual crisis. I began identifying spirit guides who I believed were taking me on a journey, a journey taking me inward, to who I really was.

Zukav also says “Your spirituality encompasses your whole soul’s journey” and that “Spiritual psychology is a disciplined and systematic study of what is necessary to the health of the soul. It will identify behaviours that operate in opposition to harmony and wholeness, in opposition to the energy of the soul.” Harmony and wholeness. Are these not elements of spirituality as well?

We think that connection with other people is another important element of spirituality. In his other book “The Heart of the Soul” Zukav says that “No individual can give compassion or wisdom to another, yet all individuals are now feeling a hunger for them, and that hunger will not quit. The starving mothers and their starving children, the homeless and the unloved, the poor and the sick, the prisoners and their captors, and the billions who live in inner anguish are with us always, because we are beginning to realize that we are inseparable from one another. Their pain is ours, and our pain is theirs. Their joy is ours, and our joy is theirs.”

Obviously, the subject of spirituality is a huge one. It is also a very important one, maybe even more so at this time of our existence. We will end with this, what Zukav says “Spiritual growth is now replacing survival as the central objective of the human experience. ... [It] is becoming attractive to individuals from every culture, race, sex, economic status, and religion.” Despite worldwide human suffering “the goal of spiritual growth is calling us to greater accomplishments than providing protection, food, and money. It is creating new and deeper understanding of who we are and what our purposes are.”

And ... “Spiritual growth – looking inward – is replacing the pursuit of external power – reaching outward to manipulate and control – as the cure for the insecurity at the core of human experience. Instead of rearranging external circumstances in order to make ourselves feel more safe, valuable, and loved, we are learning how to look inside ourselves to find the roots of our insecurities and to pull them.” We hope he is right.