Spirituality

We arrive at our maturity with fairly reasonable ideas about the "spiritual" nature of human beings. These ideas are not entirely reasonable, though. They are a mish-mash of experiences and of doctrines and orthodoxies. The thing we all seem to know is that there is a component of our mental existence that is related to our personal narrative of life and to our perceptions of the outer world beyond our bodies as, to use a crude analogy, the theme music to a motion picture. It is, in other words, a separate yet integrally related element of our consciousness, existing in terms of itself, yet clearly relating to things, persons, and events in the world.

In our workshops and seminars we assume "spirituality," but we assume nothing about it. There is an opinion that each person experiences his or her own spirituality only as clearly as the terms of analogy used to describe it will permit. For instance, we have a colleague whose notion of his spirit is that there is a little man within him made of pure energy, whose reason for being is to provide a guiding light to him when accumulated knowledge and wisdom are inadequate. Others have less tangible ideas about spirituality, and only know that there is something within them—their minds and souls—that has "something to say," but is muffled by the noise and distractions of the outside world. They want to listen to their spirit quietly, for they believe there is a truth about themselves being expressed there.

There are skeptics who say that what people experience as "spirit" and "spirituality" is nothing more than an epiphenomenon of consciousness, a sort of internal echo of their thoughts, or perhaps the murmur of an internal dialogue or narrative of their subconscious mind. Frankly, I prefer explanations like this, but at the same time I do not reject that there is something happening that I probably should pay attention to, something (to use a different kind of word) I should respect.

I think we arrive at a different seats in the same amphitheater. Some seats have a better view, some not; some are places where the activity of life can be heard well, others where it is less distinct. There are places far from the stage, far from the literal truth, if you will, where the accoustics of life are unique and perception enhanced sort of by accident. Because we have assumed we are in the same amphitheater, we assume that each one of us in a dialogue, each pursuing his or her own Inquiry, will have something to say about spirituality that is meaningful to the others.