A Basic Definition of Spirituality (of True Faith)

[Leonardo17]

The Grand Nudger:
 

“You've got the general idea right......but you'd probably be surprised to find out how many of the pagan revivalist types are atheists. There's a broad understanding in the community that religions and spiritualities are (and can be continually) constructed...as ..mostly...quasi-reconstructionists. Certainly no wall between the two, as you would have it. The norse pagan end is usually less about nature and more about heritage, for better and for worse. Whole lotta white supremacists in that sub-group. It seems to me that you just use the terms to denote which x's you like and which you don't. A bad spirituality is a religion, and good spirituality is not a religion. To me, a spirituality is one's personal experience of the sense of the numinous. You can see how the white supremacists fit this because their connectedness comes from their (percieved, alleged, supposed) whiteness. A blood bond. A religion is what the community does about or with their spiritualities....which can be tasteful or distasteful, too.”

 
- Yes. We have our own versions of revivalism here too and yes, some far right people seem to be attracted to that because of the wrong reasons if you ask me.

   But that’s not what I’m talking about. I recently found this Norwegian historical novelist who made some 100 self-portraying videos on the subject. What he is talking about is something I can easily relate to as someone who like history and especially ancient history.
I mean yes, we are probably the luckiest generation ever. There are no barbarians trying to shoot us with their arrows, no wolf pack we need to keep away with our fire, no forced duty or Great-Wall building project that has been ordered by our emperor, we don’t need to be in the mud all day, food is available at the restaurant or in the grocery store. Etc. etc. but what this Bjorn Andreas (the name of the youtube content producer) is talking about is how we lost contact to our land, contact to our tribe, how we became slave of a system that seems to be entirely focused on the material and less on the human aspects of life.

   Of course this is such a stoic approach to all of it. I mean we have artistic expression like never before, we have science producing universities and places of learning and political parties and other civil-society organizations. There is a lot of meaning in this modern capitalist society too (no matter what they say). I mean if you are married, isn’t it a great thing that your wife’s suffering will be minimal at child birth and that science will do all it can so that that tiny creature will grow so fast and become as tall as you are within two decades?

- These are all great things. And they are here thanks to science.

But still: The man is not wrong. We need to reconnect with nature and we need to reconnect with ourselves. And this is important because our civilization is heading straight to the abyss. We are still a society that’s basically ruled by profit and big corporations who are doing everything so that our politicians (who know about climate change at least since 1989) don’t / cannot do anything concrete on the issue despite the fact that we have crossed several threshold that were not to be crossed if we wanted a sustainable future.
 
So I’m open minded on this.
 

“It is interesting to note that there's nothing saying those things..as ridiculous and false as they are on their own grounds..can't also produce the sense we refer to as spiritual. Spirituality is truth neutral in that way, making the idea of a true spirituality or true faith a bit of an oxymoron. It's never really hurt religion or spirituality how often their contents prove to be demonstrably false. The point of them not being that they are true, but that we would make them so, if we could.”

 
- I can relate to that too. That’s not the issue here. You seem to be perfectly connected both to your inner-self and to nature itself. And that’s good.
 
But on a societal level, I think there is a need to understand the bigger picture. Other that the climate issue I’ve mentioned above, how is it logical and positive for us if a country like the US has built a huge industrial military complex that seems to need to create wars to sustain itself even if this means putting billions into completely sterile efforts or sending very young people into harm’s way (for no reason at all).
 
See: Science (or the mind in general) is like a scalpel. It cuts and divides everything so we get to see what inside. But for each problem we solve, we get 10 new problem that we need to resolve as well.
 
So in this particular age, we need something that can work with our incredibly increased mental capacities. And I don’t know if the newly released smart watches and eye-glasses is exactly what we need.
 
As I said, I believe in these stuff. And before me the French philosopher Blaise Pascal has said:
 

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

 
- So if we can learn to find these place of quietness within us (with one method or another, as long as it works), we should be able to turn this whole thing around at some point.
 
No one can deny this: There is a lot of dysfunction in this world (both on a social and individual level). And I wish science could be the answer to all of these problems. But obviously: It isn’t.
 
BrianSOddingBoru:

 
“How you expect meditation to answer ‘fundamental’ or ‘very important’ questions? People have been looking for the ‘inner self’ since life become more than the never ending quest for the next meal, and these questions still remain unanswered.
 
I mean, your own navel-gazing and other practices may give you answers that satisfy you, but that really doesn’t begin to approach solutions to real-world problems.”

 
I think I already answered to this in the previous part of my post.
 
But don’t get me wrong. To get a vaccine against Bundibugyo Variant you need real scientists doing countless experiments in very well equipped and money-consuming virus-research laboratories throughout the world. Only then (hopefully) there will be an end to the epidemic.
 
It’s not like I can mediate 2-3 years in a cave in the Tibetan mountains and then I will come out with the right formula to cure the disease. The world doesn’t work that way.
 
But on the other hand, if (for instance) you feel a little overwhelmed by your duties and responsibilities in this highly industrialized and individualized world, why don’t you check if there is a tai-chi group near you that you can join after work on during lunchbreak? (You know)
 
Personally, I value this “connection” or “reconnection” element a lot and that’s my main object of focus whenever I do anything that I see as spiritual.