Waking Life: The Holy Moment

This clip from Richard Lancaster's Waking Life presents spirituality in relation to film from a pantheist perspective.

Spirituality and the Self

To be spiritual is to contemplate the nature of the self, but not necessarily the other way around. When contemplating the nature of the self we can talk about the social self and the transcendental spiritual self. The social self can otherwise be called the ego. The ego is formed based on cumulated social experience, relationships, career path, and material posessions.  This self is the self we know and see ourselves as. We refer to this self as an object when using the word ‘me’ and refer to it as a subject when using the word “I”. This self is shaped and shifts thought our lifetime based on outside influences of socialization.

What is the self behind the social self? Pure awareness of consciousness: the spiritual self. It is the simple awareness of “I am” that remains constant though ones life. Descartes makes a fundamental error when he says “I think therefore I am”, when referring to the transcendental self. This is the error of equating the realm of soul with the realm of thought. The former is formless while the latter is purely form. Thinking exists in the realm of the mind which can not not be equated with the irrational realm of spirit. Reflection on the nature of a spiritual self is the deepest and most important spiritual practice one may engage in.

Tomorow's Spirituality

Ken Wilber talks about states and stages of the spiritual experience.

5 Practical Forms of Meditation

            Recently meditation has been gaining popularity in the west. Meditation can be a powerful way to relive anxiety and maintain focus in an ever increasingly fast paced society. I am going to outline some of the basic types of meditation that can be easily integrated into ones hectic lifestyle in order to maintain presence and ease stress.

1) Mindfulness: This is the practice of the mind operating in the present moment rather than being lost in thought. Don’t dwell on the past, don’t become anxious about the future. Focusing on the present situation can be done any time whether you’re working, doing chores, participating in a hobby, or any other daily activity. Immerse yourself completely into the activity at hand and take notice of small details you would normally overlook.

2) Breathing Meditation: Relax in a comfortable position, close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing. You may notice your breaths become slightly deeper. Focus the mind solely on the sensation of each breath.

3) Walking Meditation: This is a form of mindfulness that focuses entirely on each sensation as you walk. Notice the feeling of each part of your foot against the ground, the feeling of the atmosphere, the feel of your clothes against your skin, and the sensation of each breath you take. Take notice of your surroundings and feel present within them.

4) Transcendental Meditation: This is a form of meditation that has gained a lot of hype lately. It is portrayed as the most difficult form of meditation which requires the guiding of a spiritual guru who provides you with a unique mantra. In reality, a mantra is simply a tool to tire the mind and bring it into a state of blankness. This state of mind is said to be the connection to our true nature. This can be done by sitting in a comfortable position and getting into a relaxed state through breathing meditation. Once in a relaxed state, any word or sound can be repeated in your mind. The key is to not focus on the meaning of the sound, but rather just the sound. The less you think, the deeper you go. The goal is to go beyond concentration and  transcend the realm of thought.

5) Contemplation: This is the opposite of transcendental meditation since it focuses completely on  thoughts. This can be done with a short passage of wisdom such as an inspirational quote, philosophical maxim, or teaching from a religious text. Deeply understand this idea and how it relates to you.

“The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.” - Aristotle

Allan Watts - The Illusionary Self

Allan Watts talks about our narrow consciousness and how we are disconnected from our true nature.

Einstein Quotes on Buddhism

 

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” -Albert Einstein

“If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.” -Albert Einstein

"When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”
-Albert Einstein

“Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual; and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.” -Albert Einstein

"Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest." -Albert Einstein

“A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.” -Albert Einstein

The Vast Expanse of Nothingness

To live at all is miracle enough.
     -- Mervyn Peake,
The Glassblower (1950)

I often wonder if the infinite nothingness we experience before randomly coming into the world is the same infinite nothingness we will experience after we die. This is the single most frightening thought I can fathom, and makes me realize why spirituality is such an important factor in relieving such existential angst. Although this nihilistic view is bleak, I sometimes turn to it for a zest boost in times of monotony or boredom. Nothing gets me in the mood to live every second of life to the fullest then the impending doom of eternal nothingness.

What is it that randomly allowed me to feel conscious during this brief segment of time at this specific place. This question may never be answered. Although this remains a mystery, we are left with the spiritual endeavour to ponder our existence and take awe in the miracle of life. Richard Dawkins said it best in Chapter 1 of "The Anaesthetic of Familiarity" (1998):

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, and enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?”

To live fully is to question matters of our existence and reconcile our spiritual beliefs with scientific discovery.

Whatever Works

This Woody Allan film does an amazing job illustrating the role random chance plays in our lives.

"... whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filtch or provide, every temporary measure of grace -- whatever works! Don't kid yourself, it is by no means up to your human ingenuity, a bigger part of your existence is luck. Christ, you know the odds of your father's one sperm from the billions finding the single egg that made you? Don't think about it or you'll have a panic attack!"
- Boris Yelnikoff, Whatever Works

*Special thanks to my girlfriend Adeline for recommending this film

Christian Atheism

The word atheist is usually associated with being non-religious. Although this is usually the case, there is a group of atheists who identify themselves as being Christian. They follow the moral teachings of the faith while rejecting the existence of a God, as well as the divinity of Jesus. Rather, Jesus is seen as an ideal model of morality which one should strive to reach. Instead of accepting Jesus as a way to heaven, Jesus is seen as a way to humanity. This humanistic view gets to the root of Christianity, and represents the core teachings of Jesus: peace, love, helping the downtrodden, and rebelling against popular belief of the time. Does this sound familiar?

Going back to the left wing peace rallies of the 1960’s, you would see an abundance of this ideology. If this is so, why does the American right wing advocate religion so heavily? Religion is a powerful political influence with its core message manipulated,  misconstrued, and institutionalized to the point where even Jesus wouldn’t want to be associated with it. The right wing makes God partisan, while advocating for individualism and free markets that inevitably create a greater societal dichotomy between the rich and the poor. This is done while simultaneously cutting social programs that the poor rely on.

Jesus is to the American right-wing as Nietzsche is to the German Nazi party. Their messages misconstrued in order to justify an end that directly contradicts their real meaning.

Fascinating take on the universe by the BBC

This illustrates the idea of a realities beyond our reach, and raises some very interesting questions on the nature of multiple universes in relation to dimensions.

Heaven Without God

The other day I was thinking about the possibility of there being a heaven without a God. In the face of tragic events, persons of faith become angered with God. They feel a lack of understanding in why such an even has occurred, which can ultimately lead to the loss of faith. The problem is that we can not actually be angry with God, but only angry with our idea of God. If you see God as an entity that is loving, promotes justice and, wants the best for us, we can not make sense of the horrific tragedies that plague us every day. With such a specific definition of the nature of God, we can not explain many events that contradict this definition. Having a complete loss of faith is not necessary when faced with such events. The only change should be our realization that we really do not know the nature of God.

If one thing still stands from my of Catholic education growing up, it is the idea of heaven. When I say heaven, I don't mean a white place in the clouds with angels, harps, and a golden gate. Anything that has to do with transcendence of the soul into a reality we can not know is heaven to me. God doesn't necessarily need to exist in order for heaven to exist. I like to imagine heaven as another dimension parallel to the dimensions of the physical universes. Accepting the idea that we can not know the nature of god allows us to take comfort in the fact that we can not know why tragic events happen. Organic life is fragile and our bodies - part of this physical realm - can not survive without all its parts working properly. It's all very complex physical matter we can alter and label. The idea of a non-physical soul that possesses consciousness, allows us to look past the physical reality and take comfort in the possibility of an eternal spiritual life.

As Stephen R. Covey put it; "We are not human beings on a spiritual journey, we are spiritual beings on a human journey."