On Becoming Spiritually Fearless
Our conventional way of thinking about the world remains profoundly dualistic. The physical and the rational in a supposedly eternal and inexorable battle against the unseen and the spiritual. In fact, the barriers between these two dimensions -- built by the narrow rationalism of the Enlightenment -- are now being dismantled by modern science and a growing chorus of personal experiences. What we're seeing -- if we are willing to look -- is that we are not alone in an indifferent universe. As Goethe put it, "This life, gentlemen, is much too short for our souls." If this life were sufficient for our souls, we would not go through it consumed with fear.
Reintegrating the spiritual and the everyday is the key to fearlessness. But ending this division is not easy when we've stopped even acknowledging that we live caught between these two worlds. When we're consumed with climbing the career ladder or just making a living, the spiritual seems unreal and far away. So we keep it conveniently penciled in one day a week, we seek it out only in moments of crisis, or we deny it altogether while trying to convince ourselves that we can overcome all fears and obstacles on our own.
Which is not to say we're not religious. Seventy percent of Americans belong to a religious organization and 40 percent of adults attend services once a week. "The downside to all this," writes Jeffrey Kluger in his 2004 Time article "Is God in Our Genes?" "is that often religious groups gather not into congregations but into camps -- and sometimes they're armed camps. . . .Why then do we so often let the sweetness of religion curdle into combat? The simple answer might be that just because we're given a gift, we don't necessarily always use it wisely."
Here's the bottom line: If you believe in a God who only judges and punishes, or if you believe that there is nothing but an accidental, indifferent universe, it's going to be incredibly hard to move from fear to fearlessness because, after all, the essential characteristic of fearlessness is trust. It's the trust that there is meaning in our lives, even when our limited minds are unable to see it, the trust that's captured in one of my favorite verses in the Bible: "Not a sparrow falls but that God is behind it."
The alternative is a pessimism and an impatience that despair of life and seek hope either in the end of the world or in worldly panaceas.
This excerpt was originally published in On Becoming Fearless by Arianna Huffington.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
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There is no comparison to the church that Peter helped to establish and the denominational churches of the present time. There was no idol worship, no graven images. There was a fellowship of believers in the words of Christ led by his Holy Spirit. These groups of believers met and worshipped God, not in extravagent buildings,butin lowly homes and other places. These groups were scattered all over with each group voting for elders and deacons , not to be governed by one man ,but to be guided by the divine leadership of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ promised to send after his resurrection. Bring back the New Testament Church so that The order of the Heavenly Father's design will fall into place. How can anyone say that theirs is the true church,when there is so much choas and sin in the entire earth? Know we not that if we were truly following the will of our Heavenly Father that there would be Love and Peace throughout the whole earth. How little glory is given to the Almighty Power of our Heavenly Father, who, with the wave of his hand could restore order tothe whole earth. If only the teachers of the Word would rely completely on his Holy Spir
it to bring the Truth to God's children. Man's ego burns feverishly. He seems to always mix his philosophy and rationalization with God's Word. How man twists and distorts the teachings of Christ. Who is it who will submit completely to the leading of the Holy Spirit?
You go, Girl.
There are situations which shake and sometimes destroys the faith a person once held. the holocaust, the AIDS pandemic are two of the most extreme examples.
There are also vile hateful acts that Biblical quotes are used to justify, ie. witch burnings, the Inquisition, genocide of Native Americans, slavery, gay bashings.) Couple that with the hypocricy of pedofile priests, and whore-mongering evangelical ministers,(straight and gay,) and it isn't difficult to see why to many Americans having someone elses doctrines of faith shoved down their throats 24/7, just p*sses them off.
I've also seen miraculous recoveries of people so broken with addictions, it seemed impossible, but it happened before my eyes. This is how my belief in a higher power, was restored, but it's not anyone else's concept of what that power is, it's just mine, and that is just fine with me.
If faithful citizens could quietly respect all faiths, and stop judging others....THEN we'll talk.
Your comment in the last line "despair" is quite often the case for many. I was inspired though by one candidate who gave a speech that was touted as the most inspiring speech on politics and religion in 40 years. If you are wondering where our next MLK or JFK could be, someone who can combine our religious faith while maintaining freedom and respect for all faiths, please check out this speech. I guarantee you will will move from "despair" to "inspired".
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid463869411/bctid416343938
It takes fealessness to fully appreciate that there is not reality to "spirituality" in the sense it's generally used. It takes fealessness to realize that it's up to us, no matter what, and that all the praying to the universe is nothing more than a delaying tactic while we hope something less bothersome happens. I stay, "pray if you must, but keep your eyes open and don't ever get so comfortable you can't move to safer ground."
Arianna brings out two very important points in this essay 1) faith originates in an experience of God and is 2) fully expressed following that God construct (eg. Judge, Warrior, Packing Plant Supervisor, whatever). Those who profess agnosticism or atheism don't have that experience or at the very least don't allow themselves that experience of the Almighty. The bottom line is that we all die and sooner or later each of us must face our Creator and face up to what we've done with this life we've been given.
And what of this life we've been given? As someone who finds Dr. Carl Jung's model for humanity of mindbodyspirit a working construct, it never ceases to amaze me that people are confused about the other two other pieces of equipment in their "backpack", an intellect and free will. Humans don't operate either of those according to Manufacturers specifications which is what makes us human and the Almighty, well...Almighty.
Arianna;
Thanks for disclosing your heart to your readers.
My own basis of spirituality is what I call the unfathamable (I can get my mind around it)abundant beauty of the universe. I am smitten by it.
I am left with unsolvable dilemma of whom/what to thank?
So for me spiritulity is very closed to link with the concept of gratitude.
Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton, Pa
I am damned glad I'm not a believer. One can certainly live a rich, compassionate, and relatively fearless life without believing in any religion or god. I, for one, believe that it is more challenging, honest, and spiritually fulfilling to try looking at the world and living without the comfort and security of religion or god.
Arianna, I don't know exactly about "fearlessness", but now might be a good time for the Democrat 'leadership' in Congress to re-read John F. Kennedy's book, "Profiles in Courage." The _only_ Dems who deserve such a profile are those who not only recognize the high crimes and misdemeanors of this rogue, soulless White House, but are willing to do something about it. (i.e. sign on to Rep. Kuccnich's impeachment resolutions.)
The Democratic leadership is absolutely craven in pretending not to notice these serial outrage of torture and lies-to-war and warehousing wounded veterans and rewarding crony contractors at the expense of national security, etc.
And as Huffington Post becomes more successful and widely read, it, too, is starting to follow the path of Salon.com, which is to say the Washington Post, NY Times, and other press/media. My criticisms of the Times have been deleted 3 times in a row. I now only venture to Salon and Slate when they have an article pointed out by other sites (such as HuffPo) - going to those index sites is a waste of time, you have to browse through pages of NYT-esque b.s., bogus reporting, and fruadulent op-eds.
On Trust part 3
Furthermore, it is important to distinguish between religion and faith, on the one hand, and spirituality on the other. I will not attempt to address that here other than to point out (as Sam Harris has with wonderful eloquence in "The End of Faith") that when spirituality is stripped of its arbitrary and interchangeable religious cloakings it can be seen as a very sophisticated form of empiricism in which the practitioner clears his/her mind of prejudicial thoughts and observes his own experience as directly as possible. This is to be encouraged, but it is not something the faithful typically do. Finally, as a skeptic I am deeply suspicious of the Left's newly-found enthusiastic embrace of faith and religion. It appears to be a transparent attempt to co-opt the religious factions and claim the marketing power of 'God' for their own.
On Trust part 2
And I would not equate trust with fearlessness. It is trust that led us as a population to mindlessly accept the absurd arguments for invading Iraq. This trust was born of a fearful response to the attacks of 9-11. We suspended our reason and reverted to our primitive brainstem operating system - placing trust and faith in a hopeless little weanie of a pretend cowboy from Crawford, Texas who knew even less about the world than we did - merely because he was our leader. We did not ask for evidence. We were not skeptical about the linking of a traumatic event with a country long the target of the neocons. And now, astoundingly, we are once again willing to 'trust' the right wing war mongers on their absurd and dangerous assertions that we have no choice but to militarily confront Iran. It is a grotesque appeal to 'trust' and 'faith' over reason and empiricism. We appear to have learned nothing from our experience. Trust and faith are useful human mechanisms for 1. Feeling comfortable with the unavoidable uncertainty of decisions made on the basis of the best possible examination of the evidence and the application of logic, and 2. Coping with hardship and uncertainty when you are powerless to do anything about it. But trust is not the way to understand the world - skepticism and the scientific method are the tools for that. Personally, I would rank someone who is capable of embracing the uncertainty of the world without trust or faith as far more courageous than someone who requires these primitive mechanisms in order to cope.
On Trust part 1.
Where can one possibly begin in responding to this? In saying: "If you believe in a God who only judges and punishes, or if you believe that there is nothing but an accidental, indifferent universe, it's going to be incredibly hard to move from fear to fearlessness because, after all, the essential characteristic of fearlessness is trust.", you equate primitive deity worship, which was humankind's earliest, most primitaive attempt at explaining a threatening cosmos, when we were fresh out of the primoridal slime and knew jack about the cosmos, you equate this to rational empiricism, and a belief that en evidence-based model of the Universe - which arose out of hundreds of years of accumulated experience. Empiricism does not dismiss the possibility of a god (or many gods - take your pick among the multitude imaginable) any more than it dismisses the possibility of any of a multiple infinitude of conjectured but unobserved phenomena in the Universe (a fifth force responsible for the accelerating universe, parallel universes, a whole spectrum of alien civilizations, many of which might appear godlike relative to our one, or a human 'soul' which survives our corporeal death, to name a few conjectures), but empiricism demands evidence - reproducible evidence - for any such conjecure. All conjectures - whether about unseen gods or unseen forces or unseen aliens - remain conjectures until they are supported by repeateable observational evidence. That's all. Period. It's that simple. And even then 'belief' is provisional and not absolute and unquestioned. The current provisional theory of physical law or of the mechanisms of evolution are regarded as inherently incomplete - useful until further evidence and experiment displace or modify them. The scientific method does not embrace trust and faith. It is endlessly skeptical. The essence and strengh of the scientific method and all of rationalism is skepticism - not trust.
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to
believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being."
[Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: "Albert Einstein: The Human Side"
"The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth."
[Robert G. Ingersoll]
"These gods did not even know the shape of the worlds they had created, but supposed them perfectly flat. Some thought the day could be lengthened by stopping the sun, that the blowing of horns could throw down the walls of
a city, and all knew so little of the real nature of the people they had created, that they commanded the people to love them. Some were so ignorant as to suppose that man could believe just as he might desire, or as they
might command, and that to be governed by observation, reason, and experience was a most foul and damning sin. None of these gods could give a true account of the creation of this little earth. All were woefully deficient in geology and astronomy. As a rule, they were most miserable legislators, and as executives, they were far inferior to the average of American presidents."
[Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872]
"These deities have demanded the most abject and degrading obedience.
In order to please them, man must lay his very face in the dust. Of course, they have always been partial to the people who created them,
and have generally shown their partiality by assisting those people to rob and destroy others, and to ravish their wives and daughters."
[Robert G. Ingersoll, "The Gods", 1872]
I was raised by an atheist father (who was a Holocaust refugee), and aside from struggling with the knowledge that once I'm gone I will no longer have consciousness, I have not felt any poorer for not having the "spiritual" in my life. Belief in the spiritual is largely about trying to BS ourselves into feeling we will continue to exist in some form after we die. Sorry, folks, none of us live forever in any form, unless you count the dust we are ultimately reduced to. The sooner we develop a greater appreciation for what we can savor with our five senses while we have them, the sooner we can feel grateful for the genetic lottery that gave us physical existence in the here and now. That's the true "miracle."
With the many challenges facing humanity, we need to spend more time in reality, not fantasy -- most of all because the reality of climate change means we may be destroying the Earth, the only home we truly know exists. We don't have the time to screw around in spiritual fantasyland.
Only one feeling comes close to spiritual, yet is still tangible -- love.
Trust is true faith...and trust plus awareness is priceless. Because you can trust in something you believe, but that belief can let you down; if you stay aware and trust, then your beliefs won't be a hindrance. Fearlessness is trusting in the big picture, knowing that mistakes are part of the process and also not to be feared. One big thing that's missing from fundamentalism: trust. Trust that God's plan is indeed unfolding as it should, instead of trying like hell to convert/religionize everyone. Panic is not power. It's a lack of faith.
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