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 This week three famous people died: Ed McMahn, Farrah Faucett, and Michael Jackson. The news is stunning. At least with Farrah, there had been some warning, and Ed McMahon was elderly ... but Michael Jackson? It reminded me of Heath Leger's unexpected death.
Amongst friends, I have one who unexpectedly lost her mother on Monday. Another who's grandnephew died. Yet another who's grandfather just had a massive coronary and is expected to die from it. And so, is it any wonder that once again, my mind is focusing on the spirit realm? Add to this my recent, tentative viewing of Ghost Hunters and you know what I'm here to discuss. Or maybe you don't.
It isn't the afterlife, per se, I already discussed that here, but spirituality itself. What it is and isn't, and since this topic cannot be subjected to scientific investigation, encompasses all religions and is the subject of philosophical debate, I decided to discuss it as a philosophy. So what is philosophy? The Collins Essential English Dictionary, 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006 gives four definitions:
- the academic study of knowledge, thought, and the meaning of life
- the particular doctrines of a specific individual or school relating to these issues: the philosophy of John Locke
- any system of beliefs or values
- a personal outlook or viewpoint [Greek philosophia love of wisdom
I can't claim my thoughts are academic, or related to a particular school of thought, so I'll have to stick to definitions 3 and 4 for discussing spirituality/wholeness.
During my religious days, I wrote quite a few articles on bringing unity to our tripartite natures (harmonizing body, mind and soul). I believed, and still do, that we can never truly conquer ourselves until we understand the disparate demands of each aspect of our nature, and find a way to bring them into harmony. Without religiosity defining what that means, I believe I'm able to explore the concept much more broadly than before.
Dictionaries don't do justice to the concept of spirituality, so I turned to the Wikipedia for a definition more suited to our discussion.
Spirituality is matters of the spirit, a concept tied to a spirit world, a multidimensional reality and one or more deities. Spiritual matters regard humankind's ultimate nature and purpose, not as material biological organisms, but as spirits or energy with an eternal relationship beyond the bodily senses, time and the material world. Spirituality implies the mind-body dichotomy, which indicates a separation between the body and soul.
The spiritual is contrasted with the physical, matter and the temporary. A sense of connection is central of spirituality — connection to a reality beyond than the physical world and oneself, which may include an emotional experience of awe and reverence. Spirituality may also include the development of the individual's inner life through practices such as meditation and prayer, including the search for God, the supernatural, a divine influence, or information about the afterlife. Spirituality is the personal, subjective aspect of religion, mysticism, magic and occult.
(All those Wikipedia links should keep you busy for awhile  ).
Oh. Back-up.
Spirituality has to do with gods? goddesses? the divine? That was not the intent of this article at all.
The article itself, provided a key. Mysticism. To quote Wikipedia:
Mysticism (from the Greek mystikos, an initiate of a mystery religion[1]) is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or awareness. Mysticism may be dualistic, maintaining a distinction between the self and the divine, or may be nondualistic. Differing religious traditions have described this fundamental mystical experience in different ways:
- Nullification and absorption within God's Infinite Light (Chassidic schools of Judaism)
- Complete detachment from the world (Kaivalya in some schools of Hinduism, including Sankhya and Yoga; Jhana in Buddhism)
- Liberation from the cycles of Karma (Moksha in Jainism and Hinduism, Nirvana In Buddhism)
- Deep intrinsic connection to the world (Satori in Mahayana Buddhism, Te in Taoism)
- Union with God (Henosis in Neoplatonism and Theosis in Eastern and Catholic Christianity, Brahma-Prapti or Brahma-Nirvana in Hinduism)
- Innate Knowledge (Irfan and fitra in Islam)
- Experience of one's true blissful nature (Samadhi or Svarupa-Avirbhava in Hinduism)
- an ability to experience or tap into a List of superhuman features and abilities in fictionAh, now that's better. Mysticism may involve supernatural beings but by no means is it an essential component. To the contrary, mysticism "centers on a practice or practices intended to nuture those experiences or awareness." Wow. That puts a whole new slant on the articles I used to write during my religious days. Without realizing it, I had begun delving into mysticism--which is like a swear word in many anglo-saxon protestant circles.
Since I'm not part of a religion, I'm not limited to the above definitions. Here's my own: mysticism is the pursuit of inner harmony between the physical, mental and cosmic aspects within ourselves. By cosmic, I'm referring to the energies/impulses that enliven our bodies. Energies that cannot be destroyed, though they can change form. As long as we possess that energy/impulse/spark, we live. But when the spark dies, we die. (See Ghosts, Wraiths, and the Past for a more involved discussion of this concept.)
Meditation is a tool. Prayer is a tool. Tools designed to calm our minds, take us out of the physical and into the spiritual. It may involve yoga, reciting mantras, concentrating on certain inspirational concepts, spiritism, etc. The idea is seek out the part of ourselves--that spark of eternal life-- that recognizes, understands, and interacts with the cosmos. We can call it a soul, spirit, life force, god or electrical impulse, but it sees what we can't. Think about what I'm saying. We possess (or temporarily house) an entity/essence that communes with the cosmos. And when we die, that undefinable something, lives on -- because cosmic energy cannot be destroyed.
Does it carry our memories? Does it possess our personality? Does it reincarnate? We can't know for sure, but there are evidences out there. The dalai lama is reputed to carry the memories of his predecessors and that is how he is recognized. What are the reasons behind ghost stories and myths of the netherworld, if not evidence that mankind has either seen spirits or instinctually realized that life is more than the body that houses it.
When we take the effort to discover the cosmic essence within ourselves, it is like touching eternity. And, if we, like the Taoists, Hindus and Buddhists, learn how to access that life spark, who is to say that we can't begin living in eternity now. Becoming an active participant in the cosmic dance, now. Instead of seeing ourselves as hapless victims or spokes in a wheel that we can't steer, finding that life spark may enable us to become truly free. Oh, the dictates of our society will always limit what that freedom entails physically, but I'm talking about inner freedom. Contentment. Knowing that whatever might happen to our flesh, our spirit lives on...and quite possibly, chooses another body to inhabit to experience life once again.
Joseph Campbell once said that the meaning of life, is the experience of living. I think he was onto something. |
