From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Jul 09 2001 - 23:44:04 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
>
> Amara has coherantly described not only what "syncronicity",
> but also what "spirituality", mean to her; no small achievement.
>
> > (Lee, does this help you to understand how some of us might
> > define spirituality?)
>
> But it's probably also clear from what you and Samantha
> have written, that the meanings of these terms will
> remain highly personal and non-objective. Even more
> evidence for this comes from the way that I could relate
> to quite a bit of what you'd written, but (for better or
> for worse) never even coming close to utilizing the
> notion of "spirituality", and certainly not "religiosity".
Perhaps. But then much of value in life and much of the entire
concept of "value" for that matter, is "non-objective". That
is an important point.
I go into a state of awe in many similar places to Amara. But
also when I consider all the self-aware consciousness of this
planet (human for now), all of the semi-aware consciousness and
what it can evolve into. Have you ever felt the wishes and
cares and desires of a large group of humans at the same time or
felt the at-one-ness across the group? Have you expanded it to
be as big as a campus, as large as a city, as a state and kept
expanding it inside as far as you can then a bit further and
then extended it back into your parents lives and then their
parents and then theirs? Back and back picking up the
fundamental wishes and dreams and concerns of each. Those who
made it possible that you could be here as their representative,
their hope who carries the torch of their dreams. Then forward
into futures that we can create, into fulfillments of those deep
dreams and yearnings if we dare and if we grasp them deeply
enough and if don't dissipate the energy by fighting among
ourselves or trying to exclude some of us for other of us.
To me a lot of spirituality is about such expansions of
consciousness, attention and focus. Can you imagine the
consciousness of what we will become and what we will give birth
to? Can you feel it reaching back into its own becoming? Can
you feel the entire world becoming filled with intelligence and
self-awareness and yourself one part of that whole and of
greater wholes? Does your mind, heart and being explode into a
whole world, then worlds and suns without end?
Can you see/feel/know all of that in a single flower or one
single snowbird sitting on a branch high in the sky in the
height of winter?
If you can and do then you understand some of what I mean by
spirituality or what it means to me.
> So are we homing in, by any chance at all, on a mutually
> useful meaning? That is, it sounds to me that "spirituality"
> might be for many of us---certainly not all---the following:
>
> Spirituality: a deep appreciation of something so emotionally
> compelling that it becomes a form of reverance.
>
> Now, I must also candidly say that there is one huge
> problem with any such explanation or definition, and
> it's this: many people will ADAMANTLY resist any such
> reduction to concrete words or concepts for these reasons:
>
> 1. such an active reduction is itself rational/scientific,
> and therefore *itself* not emotionally compelling
It is only reduction if it is claimed to be all that is meant.
But you seem to be saying this is what it is for some of us. I
think it is too weak to express what it is you feel when you
most love the things you mention or the thinks many of us
mention.
> Some deeper psychology may also be involved, and relates
> to a statistical difference between men and women. (It's
> no coincidence, according to this observation, that the
> main defenders of "spirituality" here have been women.)
> Some of us just do not *feel* it appropriate to discuss
> our *feelings* about nature, or chess, or old movies, or
> the universe. It seems wrong or inappropriate. It can
> even seem boring, as in, "why the hell would anyone want
> to hear me rhapsodize about Tschaikovsky?" We have, for
> peculiar psychological reasons, some disdain for (vain?)
How can it be "wrong" to discuss what most moves us? Because
we have reason to be fearful of saying what that is or believe
we do? Human beings do learn to belittle themselves and others
early on.
- samantha
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