Cultivating Spirituality Without The Baggage Of Religion

There's a strong link but the link works in both directions. It seems that most writings about spirituality want to sell you a doctrine of religious belief: what you SHOULD believe about God and how he/she/it works. If you want to grow spirituality then you don't want to try to control it directly because it won't work. The reason is because we maximize our conscious control and we hate to think that we're so affected by our unconscious. If you think that the unconscious is just some esoteric Freudian term think again. Your unconscious is powerful, more powerful than you'll ever know. I'm most concerned with these questions because I know that there's a huge difference between religious belief and spirituality. Do you know how to stick shift a car? We hate to think that our grasp on the ultimate reality can be so off base. The list goes on but it begs the question: If so many religious movements are claiming to have the ultimate grasp on truth then what are the chances that ANY of them have it right? It's a deceptively simple question: Do you want to live a meaningful life? The truth is that if we want to live a meaningful life then we're already on the slippery slope of spirituality.

When you decide to live a meaningful life then you're really deciding that you want the "felt sense" of meaning from your everyday experience. Religion has more emphasis on a shared societal belief in a deity, the purpose of life and the origin of the world. It may encompass beliefs but that's not the emphasis. It's that religious beliefs occur in our consciousness while spirituality mostly involves our unconscious. The world doesn't perceive that there's much of a difference between religious belief and spirituality. This isn't just psycho-babble even though the rest of the world doesn't make this distinction. Those values don't exist in the physical world. It pertains to our relationship with our most deeply held values by which we live. Yet those meaningful values are so important to us that they can make the literal difference between our living and dying. It has to do with one's inner path toward one's most deeply held values. We'd like to think that we're right and they're wrong. Because if they're right in their religious beliefs then that means that we're wrong. You probably think "Yes. Of course." It doesn't require reflection and most people stop their line of thinking right there.

Do you ever wonder why you don't even think to approach some situations that you should? One may even be spiritual without believing in a deity. If your life is meaningful then how can you make it even more meaningful? How do you evaluate whether your life is meaningful or not? It's more like a musical score that plays in the background of our life stories. The definition of spirituality is more personal. Many people assume that spirituality and religion are the same. Although they are related, a close examination reveals a subtle difference in their definitions. Future chapters will discuss how we can consciously cultivate our unconscious to yield a bumper crop of spiritual feelings. They help us to sustain our physical health and their absence can lead us to despair, depression, physical illness or suicide. Our consciousness is what we can see. It only determines how much truth we're allowed to see. Consequently, many religions have historically been aggressive in asserting their hold on truth. They have that other worldly quality that transcends the physical plane. Notice that I've used the words "influence" and "cultivate" instead of "control." It's a crucial distinction.

The answer seems ridiculously obvious. In fact it's so powerful that it helps steer the direction of conscious awareness. In the realm of spirituality as in the realms of treating sexual impotence or observing quantum physics how you choose to approach the issue greatly influences the outcome. Existential meaning in the form of spirituality really matters! What's the meaning of meaning? We like to equate the self as being where we make our conscious choices. How do we make it a joyful force that enriches our experience and guides our actions? The unconscious has an intuitive understanding of the situation and yields a subliminal experience that isn't conceptual like conscious thought. Let's have some respect for the unconscious because that's the source of most emotion. With the latter, you have a continuous "slow burn" sense of fulfillment on an intuitive level. On some level many of us counteract that uncertainty by becoming arrogant. Do you wonder how all those muscles coordinate when you walk? Why is that? What's going on? Christians killed Pagans. Muslims killed Christians.