This is part 7 of a longer essay about spirituality, which I'm be posting here in installments.
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From the previous essay:
Unlike Western culture, spirituality doesn’t offer you a list of abstract, contradictory ideas, no matter how nice some of those ideas sound. Instead, spirituality offers you a way to meet your moments. Far from being radically divorced from our lives, then, spirituality is more down-to-earth and immediate than anything else we’ve learned. Spirituality is right there with you. It’s Western culture that leaves us with a void where it really matters. Spirituality fills a void.
But how? And with what?
The Adventure of You
Spirituality is the adventure of finding out.[1] Spirituality invites us out of our little room and down the road. We all sense something is out there for us. But most people would rather stay in their room and watch someone else’s adventure.
The reasons for this vary. Many don’t believe in that inner sense of “something” calling to them. They may write off anything said to exist outside the physical world recognized by our current science.[2] Some imagine the special something exists only for certain special people, but not for them. Whatever discomfort, frustration, or lack of fulfillment we’re experiencing is just “how life is,” so why expect anything different? Hiding in this outlook may be the sense that we personally only deserve a certain level of happiness. We may believe we are to some degree “bad” because of something we’ve done or think or feel. Or we may not even want to be “spiritual” at all if we imagine it must be boring or involve things we don’t like, such as tofu or extended forced smiling.[3] Perhaps the most common and powerful thing that stops people from leaving their room is simply fear of the unknown.
More often than not, it’s probably a tangle of several ideas that prevent someone from exploring spirituality. These ideas are understandable. They’re often widespread in our culture and embedded in our science, art, religion, and philosophy, in some cases going back centuries.
Spirituality respects a person’s hesitations. Spirit never calls with the words, “Act now because this offer won’t last!” Spirituality isn’t a religion saving souls, an ideology recruiting converts, or a product requiring customers. Its essence isn’t found in any group. Whatever image we form of what a “spiritual person” does or looks like is wrong.[4] Loose linen may be comfortable, but there is no spiritual uniform. You don’t get a dishonorable discharge for wearing tons of make-up. Spirituality respects individuality. You could even say spirituality is individuality. To be spiritual is to be you.
Western culture emphasizes individualism more than most other cultures. But ours is still a watered-down version. Call it Individuality Lite. In the West, it’s easy to get the impression that your individuality is great, as long as it involves snowboarding. “Be Yourself” almost always means, “Be Yourself up to a Point.” We “celebrate diversity,” but if your diversity goes too far or is the wrong kind, you can expect some mix of concern, judgment, ridicule, or corrective measures.
Often the corrective measures are well-intentioned. Kids are allowed to learn in different ways in school, for example, but we tend to secretly believe they’re defective if they’re too far away from the average. If a student can’t, say, do basic math by fifth grade, adults may use all the appropriate language, but the idea still lurks that it’s our culture’s expectations that are correct and the child who is flawed. By contrast, the Pirahã people of the Amazon have lived for centuries with no concept of numbers and wouldn’t even notice such a “flaw.”[5] (They are also reported to be both especially practical and especially happy people.)[6] In our culture, hearing voices or seeing visions is another indicator that something has gone awry with your individuality. We aren’t taught that in almost all cultures except the modern West, such phenomena were included in the spectrum of normal human experience, often marking a person as a gifted mediator with the spirit world.[7]
Spirituality doesn’t present any image of what you should look like. Its individuality isn’t watered-down. It isn’t afraid of skipping the bungee-jumping and watching ants crawl in the dirt for a few hours instead. Spiritual individuality is so radical, it can include choosing conformity. Some individuals find their deepest fulfillment, at least for a time, in the service of a group or other people—as when a soldier gives his life for a comrade, or a mother pours her love on a child.
Spirituality, then, is fine with a person’s hesitation to practice it. It doesn’t need to convince, convert, or recruit you. It is you already. The adventure of spirituality is already under way. Our hesitations are already part of the adventure. Whether we like it or not, we are each on the adventure of a lifetime. Spirituality just invites us to like it.
Next Up: The Firebird: What We're After
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Footnotes
[1] There are many powerful ways to complete the sentence, “Spirituality is…” We can choose one of them for a day or a lifetime.
[2] I discuss this topic in The Science Spell: Essays on Why Science Can Coexist With Spirituality.
[3] Try marinating your tofu in your favorite sauce.
[4] This is the origin of the advice from within the Buddhist tradition itself, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” If you think you’re looking for some pre-made image, then when you find that image in the world, you will only become its slave. What you’re looking for is within.
[5] The Pirahã distinguish only between “one,” “many,” and “several.” Despite their efforts, Westerners have been unable to teach a single Pirahã adult how to count. Many other tribal cultures have numbers only up to three or four. Research suggests that the concept of numbers beyond the first few is not natural to the human brain. We Westerners take them for granted only because we are taught them from a very early age.
[6] Despite their efforts, Westerners have been unable to teach a single Pirahã adult how to count. Many other tribal cultures have numbers only up to three or four. Research suggests that the concept of numbers beyond the first few is not natural to the human brain. We Westerners take them for granted only because we are taught them from a very early age.
[7]In other cultures, voices and visions have been viewed as significant in some way. Even in Western culture, before the medicalization of the nineteenth century, what we now call hallucinations were called apparitions. But changing their name hasn’t made them go away. Today, the neurologist Oliver Sacks reports in his lengthy book Hallucinations, such phenomena are quite common among perfectly sane adults, who are understandably not eager to share their “crazy” experiences.
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