The Truth contest, Essential Oils and New Age Spirituality

[AceBoogie]

I try to practice mindfulness, but not for reasons that I would call "spiritual."  Mostly it's to tidy up loose thoughts and get a more intense experience of everyday reality, not to transcend it.

Same here. I practice meditation and mindfulness or 'trying to stay in the moment' so to speak. Honestly when I am really 'in the zone' I sort of feel high all the time. Like not intoxicated high but just feel like a really loose, relaxed, happy version of me and every moment sort of pulsates into the next. Very interesting experience and it is more easily attained when I'm meditating on a regular basis.

Certainly not something I would consider spiritual though, just an interesting place for your mind to be. And it actually has real, detectable benefits.

[Edwardo Piet]

Yeah, I would never call myself spiritual but I am spiritual in that very loose secular sense of being the sentimental hippy type. I believe in nothing supernatural.

This is the only sense I'm spiritual:

It would not be too strong to say that I felt sane for the first time in my life. And yet the change in my consciousness seemed entirely straightforward… I had ceased to be concerned about myself. I was no longer anxious, self-critical, guarded by irony, in competition, avoiding embarrassment, ruminating about the past and future, or making any other gesture of thought or attention that separated me from him. I was no longer watching myself through another person’s eyes.

And then came the insight that irrevocably transformed my sense of how good human life could be. I was feeling boundless love for one of my best friends, and I suddenly realized that if a stranger had walked through the door at that moment, he or she would have been fully included in this love. Love was at bottom impersonal — and deeper than any personal history could justify. Indeed, a transactional form of love — I love you because . . . — now made no sense at all.

The interesting thing about this final shift in perspective was that it was not driven by any change in the way I felt. I was not overwhelmed by a new feeling of love. The insight had more the character of a geometric proof: It was as if, having glimpsed the properties of one set of parallel lines, I suddenly understood what must be common to them all… The experience was not of love growing but of its being no longer obscured. Love was — as advertised by mystics and crackpots through the ages — a state of being. How had we not seen this before? And how could we overlook it ever again?

This I can relate to. I do have experiences like this every few months. Whilst fully sober in every way. And I'm experiencing it more and more often. In fact thinking and talking about it helps me feel like it again. I feel it when I stop shutting people out.

[Astreja]

Honestly when I am really 'in the zone' I sort of feel high all the time. Like not intoxicated high but just feel like a really loose, relaxed, happy version of me and every moment sort of pulsates into the next. Very interesting experience and it is more easily attained when I'm meditating on a regular basis.

Your description put Me in mind of alpha waves at first, but further digging around reveals that it's not as simple as that.  They've also noticed an increase in theta waves, and increased blood flow to some parts of the brain.

Meditation training does appear to have tangible neurological and psychological effects, although they're still sorting through it all.  (Trying to stage high-quality blinded studies is likely going to be an ongoing problem in researching this, simply because of differences in study subjects and the difficulty in coming up with a "placebo" form of meditation for the control group.)

[AceBoogie]

Your description put Me in mind of alpha waves at first, but further digging around reveals that it's not as simple as that.  They've also noticed an increase in theta waves, and increased blood flow to some parts of the brain.

Meditation training does appear to have tangible neurological and psychological effects, although they're still sorting through it all.  (Trying to stage high-quality blinded studies is likely going to be an ongoing problem in researching this, simply because of differences in study subjects and the difficulty in coming up with a "placebo" form of meditation for the control group.)

Yes I've heard of some research being done on meditation where they've found that you can actually change the way your mind works by meditating on a regular basis. Apparently there were some observable, documented changes in some people. Never looked too much into it though, but I can definitely speak for the effectiveness of meditation.

And honestly it only makes sense in today's world of social media and technology to learn how to sort of slow your mind down and think more clearly. People are too wrapped up in dealing with things in their own mind to be present in the here and now.

[The Grand Nudger]

the difficulty in coming up with a "placebo" form of meditation for the control group.

-it's called "sleeping", lol.  

[Astreja]

And honestly {meditation} only makes sense in today's world of social media and technology to learn how to sort of slow your mind down and think more clearly. People are too wrapped up in dealing with things in their own mind to be present in the here and now.

I can't say that I'm particularly diligent in meditation practice, but the one thing about mindfulness that I find appealing is that it enriches life experience.  Even something as seemingly trivial as the patterns and colours and textures of a ballpoint pen on the desk I can find fascinating, if I take the time to really examine it.

How much food do we just gulp down without really tasting it?  How aware are we of the sounds that surround us?  There's so much out there, and most of the time we just skim over it as if it isn't there.

[drfuzzy]

What is spiritual?  It implies a beliefs in spirit, or at least a spirit world, or in "things not seen". 
It opens the door to all sorts of woo.  I tried it.  It didn't take.  

Meditation can be good for calming the nerves, but don't give me that crap about "connecting with the universe" or whatever.  
Essential Oils can make a room smell great, but I think their effect on health and mental wellness has been pitched by modern snake-oil salesman.

Same with any other belief - put it through scientific testing, validate it, publish the facts, then it might be worth a look.

[Primordial Bisque]

Spirituality is attained when you successfully trick yourself into believing there's something outside of reality. It's hard enough for me to even read about without feeling like a whack-nut; so I just stay away. Far, far away.

[Aegon]

Spirituality is attained when you successfully trick yourself into believing there's something outside of reality. It's hard enough for me to even read about without felling like a whack-nut; so I just stay away. Far, far away.

Are you believing something outside of reality, or are you just thinking about reality in a different way? That's what I think Taoism does.

[Aegon]

I suppose I am spiritual. I don't think I could be so heavily interested in the Tao if I weren't. But the only things on OP's list that I'm interested in are meditation, mindfulness, and psychedelics.