Spirituality and atheism

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What is Spirituality?

I gave kudos to your question because there seems to be very little consensus on it and its the question I would have asked had you not beaten me to it.

For me it has nothing whatsoever to do with religion. My experiences that I would tentatively label as spiritual probably wouldn't qualify for others.

I can't give you a definition - I have been struggling to put it into words for the last half an hour. My experiences have kind of just happened - when I wasn't expecting them. I certainly can't force it in any way as it is the opposite of forcing something. It really feels like it is something that is happening to you - sometimes from the most mundane causes.

Fucked that up good and proper - sorry and still not given you any explanation.

OK - I'll try some examples:

Voice:

I was a teenager with my mother for the day running various errands. One stop was at the travel agent to book their holiday. The woman dealing with us was attractive, but not that special and heavily pregnant, but her voice.....mesmerized me. She spoke and I melted. I could feel her voice with every part of my body. It wasn't erotic. It was akin to having your soul stroked by a gentle hand in a velvet glove. I didn't get a single word she said. I was lost in the melody of it.

When my mother ran out of questions and got up to go I was quite desolate as I tagged along.

Eyes:

This is kinda corny - eyes meeting across a crowded room. At a party a girl I didn't know, quite literally at the other end of the room. Lost in her gaze. A connection at what felt to be a very fundamental level for a few seconds. The she smiled and the moment vanished. Nothing wrong with her smile - it just broke the spell. We never even exchanged a word - she "got off" with someone else moments later. No idea if she felt the same thing, I like to think she did. I never even knew her name.

Music:

I was an audiophile for many years. This meant I had spent considerable time and money attempting to get the best possible sound quality from my home stereo. It was something of an obsession. I was a member of an audiophile club and had learned to listen to a system analytically. To dissect the listening experience and be able to discern what was good and what was bad about the way a system replayed a given recording.

The problem was that whilst learning that I had somehow stopped hearing the music. I heard amps and speakers, impact and decay, balance of treble and bass, midrange bloom and all the rest of the crap - without ever realizing it was happening.

2 things saved me. The first was hearing test which showed just how much my hearing has actually deteriorated now. I have 50% hearing loss at frequencies above 10 KHz in my left ear and 30% in my right. I can still hear almost all the music but I can hardly be a judge of systems with that equipment on my head.

The second thing was a few nights later. My wife was in bed and I was in the living room listening to Elgar's Cello concerto at a relatively modest volume level. I was drowsy, comfortable and relaxed and kind of drifted off into a reverie. For the first time in years I wasn't hearing the damn system I was hearing the music. One by one the components of the system disappeared from my mind along with the chair, the room, the location, and finally me until eventually it was just the music. I was the music - we'd merged.

When the concerto ended I was no longer an audiophile. Sadly I have never been able to repeat that experience - it was a one off. Maybe one day it will happen again when I am least expecting it.


Now to me all of the above were spiritual experiences. I've had others (one during a BJ) but heaven knows if reading about them would mean anything to you.

I have a feeling what I have just described as spiritual wouldn't qualify for others.