I've enjoyed browsing this forum, there's a lot of sage contributors on this board and it's a delight to feel that wind on my heart.
One thing I've noticed in these conversations is a recurring diversion into how to define "spritituality." Like most simple words, professional philosophy can't get to the bottom of it. Like bystanders on the side of a river, they can only observe and wave as the boat semantically drifts downstream.
So when Philosophy fails, I'll take Science next...which hopefully includes Anthropology on its good days. There's *something* people have in common. Despite the unimaginable differences in what they believe and how they revere it, they do it. They need it.
"There has to be an invisible sun
That gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day's done."
Somewhere up the ladder on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, there's just something to this. We're not content without it forever. Even for those whom the words 'religion' and 'God' are not their cup of tea...there's some waterfall somewhere they go to get nourished, inspired, and purposed...to feel cosmic.
And it's not just hammy personal philosophy. Even if you're as skeptical about scientific methodology in this age of the Replication Crisis as I am, there's no one competent in Health Care who can deny that the body of evidence of 'religious'/'spiritual' activity in patients has a profound positive difference on health outcomes. This has been so settled for so long that it pervades medical practice standards, and the personality types of the most skeptical and innate trust issues becoming doctors will look you straight in the eye and encourage your spiritual activity in their care.
Gandhi helps me see what we all have in common---we understand it differently, and can bicker about the word, but whatever you prefer to call it:
"God is that indefinable something which we all feel but which we do not know. To me God is Truth and Love, God is ethics and morality. God is fearlessness, God is the source of light and life and yet. He is above and beyond all these. God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. He transcends speech and reason. He is a personal God to those who need His touch. He is purest essence. He simply Is to those who have faith."
It's the invisible sun. I define "spirituality" as non-sensory experience: thought, imagination, emotion--this is the realm of our spirituality. There's something we all need in there that the five senses can't grasp.
I like "Dao" myself, but count myself blessed with other friends with different names. Matter in the slightest? Probably not. Bottom line:
Truth, Love.
There's just something that sticks in my craw about the line "Love isn't jealous." As much as I wanted to cravenly people-please and make a lover feel like a transcendant (monotheistic) goddess who owns my universe, there was something dishonest going on I couldn't quite see or consciously put my finger on for many years.
Different lovers brought out different sides of me. It was never the same. I was never the same. Love exists in a bigger universe than in a menagerie built by two, even if I capitulate to a custom of one-at-a-time.
By the time I stumbled into open, committed relationships, it proved true in concurrence as well. The honesty, the respect, the gracious humility and selfless pleasure in a partner finding and enjoying a piece of her heart with another--this is the Love that rings true with all the scriptures worth remembering.
Love is big. It is liquid. It takes the shape of the container it is given. It gives.
What was once a hopeful ideal is a life I get to live. Took honesty and bravery. I count myself lucky to be in the company of others who found theirs, too.
Doesn't much matter to me what you call your Invisible Sun. I'm just glad you have it.
Namaste
One thing I've noticed in these conversations is a recurring diversion into how to define "spritituality." Like most simple words, professional philosophy can't get to the bottom of it. Like bystanders on the side of a river, they can only observe and wave as the boat semantically drifts downstream.
So when Philosophy fails, I'll take Science next...which hopefully includes Anthropology on its good days. There's *something* people have in common. Despite the unimaginable differences in what they believe and how they revere it, they do it. They need it.
"There has to be an invisible sun
That gives its heat to everyone
There has to be an invisible sun
That gives us hope when the whole day's done."
Somewhere up the ladder on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs, there's just something to this. We're not content without it forever. Even for those whom the words 'religion' and 'God' are not their cup of tea...there's some waterfall somewhere they go to get nourished, inspired, and purposed...to feel cosmic.
And it's not just hammy personal philosophy. Even if you're as skeptical about scientific methodology in this age of the Replication Crisis as I am, there's no one competent in Health Care who can deny that the body of evidence of 'religious'/'spiritual' activity in patients has a profound positive difference on health outcomes. This has been so settled for so long that it pervades medical practice standards, and the personality types of the most skeptical and innate trust issues becoming doctors will look you straight in the eye and encourage your spiritual activity in their care.
Gandhi helps me see what we all have in common---we understand it differently, and can bicker about the word, but whatever you prefer to call it:
"God is that indefinable something which we all feel but which we do not know. To me God is Truth and Love, God is ethics and morality. God is fearlessness, God is the source of light and life and yet. He is above and beyond all these. God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist. He transcends speech and reason. He is a personal God to those who need His touch. He is purest essence. He simply Is to those who have faith."
It's the invisible sun. I define "spirituality" as non-sensory experience: thought, imagination, emotion--this is the realm of our spirituality. There's something we all need in there that the five senses can't grasp.
I like "Dao" myself, but count myself blessed with other friends with different names. Matter in the slightest? Probably not. Bottom line:
Truth, Love.
There's just something that sticks in my craw about the line "Love isn't jealous." As much as I wanted to cravenly people-please and make a lover feel like a transcendant (monotheistic) goddess who owns my universe, there was something dishonest going on I couldn't quite see or consciously put my finger on for many years.
Different lovers brought out different sides of me. It was never the same. I was never the same. Love exists in a bigger universe than in a menagerie built by two, even if I capitulate to a custom of one-at-a-time.
By the time I stumbled into open, committed relationships, it proved true in concurrence as well. The honesty, the respect, the gracious humility and selfless pleasure in a partner finding and enjoying a piece of her heart with another--this is the Love that rings true with all the scriptures worth remembering.
Love is big. It is liquid. It takes the shape of the container it is given. It gives.
What was once a hopeful ideal is a life I get to live. Took honesty and bravery. I count myself lucky to be in the company of others who found theirs, too.
Doesn't much matter to me what you call your Invisible Sun. I'm just glad you have it.
Namaste