Getting real is geniune spirituality

Spirit. Matter. Heaven. Hell. Soul. Body.

Words...

If they don't point to something real, they're interesting expressions of human cognition. But the mind can come up with all sorts of abstractions. If these aren't grounded in anything other than more concepts, clinging to them leads us into a airy-fairy world of our own imagining.

I love this quote from Thoreau's Walden.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position.

Through an infirmity of our natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out.

In sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.

Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch."

His companion's prayer is forgotten.

On this blog I probably often come across as sounding unduly skeptical about spirituality. That is true, insofar as "spirit" is viewed as something detached from everyday existence, opposed to materiality, formless and invisible.

For sure, I'm not nearly as attracted to abstractions as I used to be.

If something that's supposedly "spiritual" isn't directly experienced by the average person, and no one can supply convincing evidence that doing X, Y and Z will produce such an experience, then I'd rather embrace the truth that is right before me, rather than chase after truth down a winding road of "around the next corner" promises.

Understand: I'm not reducing reality to only what is observable.

Inner experiences known only to the experiencer also are eminently real. But if there is no way for other people to reliably experience those experiences, they can't be considered more than subjective one-of-a-kind sensations.

Last night my wife and I had a West Coast Swing lesson. I've done enough ballroom dancing to recognize the familiar trajectory of learning a new dance move.

First, clumsiness. Then, mechanical competence. Finally, relaxed fluidity that allows my wife and me to finally feel what a dance style is all about, rather than merely going through the motions of it.

"West Coast Swing" is an abstraction. Leading a sugar push is wonderfully concrete. When our instructor demonstrated how to do it a few lessons ago, within several minutes, I could.

I enjoy similarly practical descriptions of how to meditate, or engage in other practices that are generally considered "spiritual" (an increasingly meaningless word to me). Yet it's amazing how often writers or speakers on spirituality will never get down to the nitty-gritty sort of Thoreau'ian make a knot in the thread statement.

Or they hedge their instruction with all sorts of disclaimers. "Results may not be apparent in this lifetime." "It all depends on the guru's (or God's) grace." "Expecting to achieve something means you won't."

Every morning I meditate for about twenty minutes. I keep my meditation pretty darn simple. Few abstractions. As down to earth as possible.

Most of the day I'm doing things. So I like to start off my day with a contrast: doing as little as possible. Sitting still on my meditation cushion. Closing off my seeing and hearing with shut eyelids, a dark sleep mask, and noise-reducing headphones.

And then shutting down what usually goes on inside my head -- thoughts, emotions, and such -- by repeating a one-word mantra when my attention wanders into my usual sorts of doings.

I'm alive. I'm conscious. I exist.

Usually I'm performing actions in a lively fashion. There is a lot going on in my consciousness. I'm aware of many existing things. It's refreshing, and unfailingly intriguing, to see what happens when I come closer to life, consciousness, and existence absent much of my usual doing.

Which leaves, being.

Of course, I'm still doing something concrete. There's just considerably less doing than what occurs in the rest of my day, which is what I mean by "being."

I don't expect that anyone else would find my meditation practice as fulfilling as I do. There isn't any grand philosophical system connected with it. I can't claim that my meditation leads to any profound insights into the nature of the cosmos, or even me.

It's just real. I can describe what I do almost as clearly and distinctly as I could describe the six steps in a West Coast Swing sugar push.

And that makes it satisfying for me. I feel grounded in here-and-now truth, rather than fantasizing about flying off in a there-and-then flight to enlightenment.

Comments

[tAo]

what happened to huckleberry's comment? i never got to read it. i guess the night janitor thought it trash and so tossed it in the ash-y bin.

alas, blogging is like life. here one moment... gone the next.

which reminds me...

http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/authors/Twain/Mysterious-Stranger.htm

[Blogger Brian]

tAo, huckleberry's comment was unpublished because of insults and rants that went against this blog's comment guidelines. Ditto for haribaldi's comment. I'm always surprised that these religious fundamentalists are so good at following their own "ten commandments," but aren't capable to following this blog's much more sensible rules.

[Rain]

Well one thing about deciding what is real is that we may not be able to see it but someone else could. We do that with science all the time. Do you know that we are made up of atoms by anything other than experts telling you? I guess you could say you don't need to know it but it's a basic part of existence and a truth that is not discernible without knowledge and tools. I won't say that the supernatural is necessarily the same thing in that there aren't tools; but there are those who have had experiences and can relate them. There are those who see things the rest of us do not and can tell us. Some might be frauds but some might be telling the literal truth as they have observed or experienced it. I don't have to see everything to believe it; but I understand your concern about the frauds out there who milk 'visions' for their profit and to gain power over others. We also have to separate out the mentally ill (those who have no control over their visions) from genuine otherworldy experiences

[BleedingObvious]

Cant find the reference but some months ago, I read about a group of theoretical researches working on multidimensional modelling. These guys were programming computers to model up to 13 dimensions. What was interesting was that these researchers could, after a while, readily mentally visualise 4, 5 and even 6 dimensions, in ways we cannot begin to form images.
It is as if the brain, once trained, can see things that are purely mental constructs.
Some further work was being conducted to try to understand how these researchers could so readily form mental images of non-observable objects, but when tested they were able to visualise quicker than their computer model.
Will go and search again for the link, all interesting stuff, I dont think the world is quite so black and white as some science promoters would have us believe.

[hallucinating_monkey]

The quantum theorists are almost ready to conclude that what was once defined as 'real' in terms of sensual external observation is now a shadow of reality and in essence is actually 'unreal', in like terms to what the ancients have always known to be 'maya' or 'illusion'.

So what the new age scientists of today are only scratching at the surface of that matter is in fact 'unreal' illusion, not fixed and imperminent and subject to mutation and transformation and transmigration, the true scientists of matters 'real' and permanent and that which forms the very foundations and backdrop or 'true substance' of this external illusory shadow show, have known all along, except that they have always been persecuted for that so called 'subjective' knowledge by those untrue blind scientists and religious fundamentalists similar to those you find on this site. (and only due to that their lenses and means of perception are not limited by the sensual dictates of the blunt apparati of the innacurate models and procedures or the blinded metabolism of the short sighted physicists)

[John Rory]

This blog is interesting

http://blinkerlessness.blogspot.com

[George]

John Rory
I tried to leave a comment, but had to sign up to somwehere rather then leaving an anon response, which is as follows:

"Tho i latgely agree, some of your premises are questionable.

Firstly, i wonder how absolute any laws are including the laws of entropy? For ezample, if energy cannot be created or destroyed, what happens to the energy swallowed by a singularity or black hole?

Also, the conservation of energy only applies to a closed system, i.e. a finite universe, which conflict and makes slightly non-sensical your other questions as to 'what is transcendental' or 'what came before' such a closed universe. If an open system then presumably the laws of conservation fail. Either way it seems one of your premises must fail logically?

Also, your initial definition of Science does not contain its most important feature which distinguishes it from all other methods of explanation - evidence.

While phenomena may exist, they are not science until evidence is fortcoming. Something may be true, but not science. Science has never disputed this. Anything is possible, but just how probable it is, is a different story.

[John Rory]

Sorry George
I have fixed the moderator comment setting, can you please post there now, i will be pleased to reply