Using the word Spiritual

[vulcanlogician]

I might use it, if I had a solid working definition. Otherwise I dont bother with the labels.

Solid definitions help. They really do.

At the colloquial level (like say in rural Bhutan) an everyday Buddhist might have beliefs in unseen forces, spirits, or demi-gods who answer prayers. But within the Theravada --and even outside of it-- there exists a strain of fully-developed philosophical materialism that appeared years ahead of most materialist schools founded in Europe. Does that make them "not spiritual"? Who knows? It depends on the definition you use. If rising from bed at 6 in the morning and meditating for three hours, thereafter spending time in contemplation of the world and the actions you take within in it counts as "spiritual" then you'll have to stop equivocating it with woo. Because there is no "woo" in that. Another definition of spirituality might be "consisting of genuine and deep contemplation". For future reference, that's what I mean when I use the word.

After reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, one might be inclined to categorize Nietzsche as "spiritual." Not just that book--many other of his works too-- but especially that work. At one point in the book he heads each paragraph with the exclamation "O my soul!" -like TWENTY TIMES IN A ROW- and says things like "I've strangled the strangler called 'sin.'" But anyone who knows anything about Nietzsche is familiar with his ardent atheism...

I'd like to hear others' opinions on the quoted passage below--does it move the spirit or not? It does mine. But look at its content. Nothing "woo" in there at all. But plenty of deep contemplation. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say altogether with my post. Perhaps (like the concept "morality") the concept of "spirituality" has been commandeered by the woo-heads and the religious folks... and I'd like to get it back.


Nietzsche passage below for any who are interested:

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From Thus Spoke Zarathustra, F. Nietzsche - Translated by Walter Kaufmann

On the Despisers of the Body

I want to speak of the despisers of the body. I would not have them learn and teach differently, but merely say farewell to their own bodies --- and thus become silent.

“Body am I, and soul” – thus speaks the child. And why should one not speak like children?
But the awakened and knowing say: body am I entirely, and nothing else; and soul is only a word for something about the body.

The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and peace, a herd and a shepherd. An instrument of your body is also your little reason, my brother, which you call “spirit” – a little instrument and toy of your great reason.

“I,” you say, and are proud of the word. But greater is that in which you do not wish to have faith – your body and its great reason: that does not say “I,” but does “I.”
. . . 

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler, an unknown sage – whose name is self. In your body he dwells; he is your body. 

There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom. And who knows why your body needs precisely your best wisdom?

Your self laughs at your ego and at its bold leaps. “What are these leaps and flights of thought to me?” It says to itself. . . . The self says to the ego, “Feel pain here!” Then the ego suffers and thinks how it might suffer no more ---- and this is why it is made to think. The self says to the ego, “Feel pleasure here!” Then the ego is please and thinks how it might often be pleased again – and that is why it is made to think.
. . 

I want to speak to the despisers of the body. It is their respect that begets their contempt. What is it that created respect and contempt and worth and will? The creative self created respect and contempt; it created pleasure and pain. The creative body created the spirit as a hand for its will.

Even in your folly and contempt, you despisers of the body, you serve your self. I say unto you: your self itself wants to die and turns away from life. It is no longer capable of what it would do above all else: to create beyond itself. That is what it would do above all else, that is its fervent wish. 

But now it is too late for it to do this: so your self wants to go under, O despisers of the body. Your self wants to go under, and that is why you have become despisers of the body! For you are no longer able to create beyond yourselves.

And that is why you are angry with life and the earth. An unconscious envy speaks out of the squint-eyed glance of your contempt.

I shall not go your way, O despisers of the body! You are no bridge to the overman!

Thus spoke Zarathustra. 

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