Before addressing the importance of spirituality in modern times, we should first define it. Spirituality is the experience of that domain of awareness where we experience our universality. This domain of awareness is a core consciousness that is beyond our mind, intellect, and ego. In religious traditions this core consciousness is referred to as the soul which is part of a collective soul or collective consciousness, which in turn is part of a more universal domain of consciousness referred to in religions as God. When we have even a partial glimpse of this level of awareness we experience joy, insight, intuition, creativity, and freedom of choice. In addition, there is the awakening of love, kindness, compassion, happiness at the success of others, and equanimity. As the turbulence of our mind settles down, our body also begins to heal itself because it also quiets down. The body's self-repair mechanisms are activated when the mind is at peace because the mind and body are at the deepest level inseparably one.
All religions are founded on a deep spiritual experience of unity consciousness where there was complete union between the personal and universal. Unfortunately, many times the followers of religion, instead of understanding the religious experience and seeking it for themselves ended up merely worshiping the founder of the religion. It is more important to fully grasp the teaching of the religion and its basic tenets, that have come from a deeper experience of transcendence. Self-righteous morality is not a means for experiencing higher consciousness. Higher consciousness, spontaneously leads to moral and ethical behavior. However, because spiritual knowledge is powerful, the custodians of organized religion have frequently ended up with destructive behaviors -- power mongering, cronyism, control, corruption, and influence peddling. As a result organized religion has frequently become quarrelsome, divisive, and led to conflict. No organized religion has been immune to this unfortunate tendency. So, we have had the crusades and witch-hunts of Christianity, the Jihads of Islam, the violent communal riots instigated by fundamentalist Hindus and the persecution of minorities and ethnic cleansing all in the name of God.
Our present times are particularly dangerous because ancient habits combined with modern capacities and technologies of destruction are a devastating combination that can destroy life on our planet.
As we begin to have a more scientific understanding of the transcendent level of our existence and look at the basic tenets of all religions, we find that the spiritual experience is fundamental to all and similar in all. This experience can be had by anyone through the practice of meditation, prayer, contemplative self-inquiry, the expression of love and compassion in action, intellectual inquiry into the deeper meaning of life, and self-less service. With these practices, we begin to realize that consciousness is a field of infinite possibilities; that it is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient and infinitely creative. This experience also leads to unbounded love and compassion. Getting in touch with our deepest self is therefore the utmost importance because it is our connection to the mystery that we call God.
As the Sufi mystic Rumi has said, "You're not just a drop in the ocean, you're also the mighty ocean in the drop." If there is anything that will at this moment heal our wounded planet with its immense problems of social injustice, ecological devastation, extreme economic disparities, war, conflict and terrorism, it is a deeper experiential understanding and knowledge of our own spirit. With this deeper understanding and with an interfaith dialogue that looks at our commonalities rather than our differences, we have the opportunity to solve the problems of the world, address its inequities and heal ourselves. The word, "healing" and the words, holy and whole, all mean the same thing. To be healed is to have the return of the memory of who we really are. When we return to our sacred source, the world will be holy, and it will be healed.
deepakchopra.com
Follow Deepak on Twitter
Follow Deepak Chopra on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeepakChopra
Smitha Khorana: The Sufi Dargah: A Sacred Space in India For All Faiths (PHOTOS)
And to me it is not a "good start" but end-all.
What do we do?!!
I define four immense fields of human inquiry. If this is not enough, that I don't know what is.
The spiritual blather and dependence on an after life for redemption are based on primitive man's ignorence bour continued reliance on it is based on our contemporary stupidity which I fear is not curable and may, regretably, lead us into a second Dark Age.
Man needs to grow up.
Burry is a prime example of the psychopaths that society promotes and celebrates because we use status, power, greed and wealth as criterion for "success". Rather than bringing awareness to the public and promoting the common good, he exploited the situation and made a lot of money for himself and his shareholders (investors). To be successful on Wall Street, you have to understand that it's a financial game where at the end of the day there are losers and their are winners. The only winning strategy on Wall Street is greed and the only successful personality is to acquire a psychopathic personality.
Chopra, spirituality will not save our ills but it will keep those who lost in a dazed "happy" state so the "successful" people can keep exploiting the Other. In our financial crisis, the winners also made off with tax payers' money. Spirituality has no track record in solving society's ills.
Read the story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/02/michael-burry-the-unlikel_n_482712.html?show_comment_id=41391680#comment_41391680
Look at individual behavior. Those who would, through greed, cause an economic collapse and then use their political influence to engineer a bail-out for themselves, at others expense, with absolutely no remorse over what they've done (and this is key) may very well be psychopathic personalities. It's people who will walk all over others and lie their way to the top. It's people who take advantage of others with no concern for anyone's well being but their own. It's people who run companies with predatory policies like Goldman Sachs, B of A, and Enron, to name just a few, who seem to exhibit the tell-tale traits.
It's people who are devoid of empathy. Look at the display Sen Jim Bunning just put on. Look at all those "successful", charismatic people in government who repeatedly tell blatant lies with no embarrassment whatsoever. The ones who act in self-interest, rather than the interests of those they're sworn to represent. This is the kind of behavior I was referring to.
You must exhibit a certain number of a long list of personality traits to qualify as psychopathic. What I've listed here is a gross simplification.
It gives you some qualities to look for.
In Burry's case he saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. This is not a psychopathic trait, he certainly did no harm to anyone by doing it, and it may not be fair to judge him this way.
Goldman Sachs sold mortgage-backed securities, then bet against them, knowing they would fail. I may be wrong, but as I understand it Burry simply bet against them.
It's so much easier for the celebrity elites to maintain what they have when the masses are happy in their own littler "spiritual" world.
Chemistry, not spirituality, will solve [to a great degree] the major issues that we all face! The question, then is...how will it?
1) If we come to grips with the fact that the universe is in one piece, which is indifferent to the prayers and calls of puny humans, we can become more realistic in our goals...and actually achieve them with greater probability.
2) If we don't accept that the natural world includes us [including the restrictions and things we can't do anyway because of our finiteness], then the world will go on [as it has for billions of years], taking us down faster than we may wish.
It's all a matter of seeing the interactions of entropy, enthalpy and the changes in these variables in the world. That is, if we want to solve our problems, we should at first understand what the problems really are, and not get into the habit of vague predictions and scaremongering.
A bonus: as we are an integral part of the natural world, we have the ability to resolve these difficulties. [This is a problem, though, if people believe that they are 'beyond' nature.]
The world is what it does, and we must not forget this!
Signed,
The chemist down the road
P.S: there's great movement towards green chemistry, which strives to prevent chemical accidents and environmental damage before it happens.
Albert Einstein
The truth lies below the surface. Spirituality is the study of spirit.
Everything is energy vibrating at a different level. The spirit in this
context is also energy. Quantum Physics-Study of what makes
up the Universe both the seen and unseen. The behavior of energy
and matter at the atomic and subatomic level. That is the connection
of Spirituality and Quantum Physics in experiencing the how's of
creating. I believe that thoughts become things and we create our
own Universe.
But I fail to see a conclusive connection between quantum physics and spirituality. Or rather, I do see such a connection - but only when the spiritualists modify what they think spirituality means in order to better conform to quantum physics.
Can't we just call it quanum physics?
Random blather about "spirituality" is useless. Or worse -- if it distracts well-meaning people from actually doing something good with their good intentions.
Arguments for spirituality's utility in solving real-world problems often come down to this: "If only everyone on Earth had a spirituality that is exactly like my spirituality, all problems would be solved. Somehow."
Rarely does the advocate even game out a rough scenario illustrating *how* step one leads to step two, and so on. Or acknowledge that the probability of the required critical mass of people agreeing to adopt one person's unique view of spirituality is...rather low.
"Spirituality" is what narcissists do so they can focus on themselves while pretending to focus on others.
The most profound spiritual experience is one of Unity consciousness, which Dr Chopra refers to in his article. It's a state of consciousness wherein we actually experience the interconnection between all things. And that's the real point of his article. If we could all experience Unity consciousness we would know we are all one and the same. We would lose our sense of separation and there would be no conflicts, because there would be no "us" separate from "them". After all, you can't fight yourself. That awareness would inevitably bring harmony because we would all realize how connected we really are, and work for our mutual - really, our own - benefit.
spirituality has never solved ANYTHING.
All too often, it is nothing but a will'o'wisp, leading you down false trails as circular as its logic.
Spirituality has no track record of solving the ills of civilization. Compassion and empathy is a capacity we all have but we have to choose it. Human beings don't choose it because our culture celebrates greed, status, wealth and power. These traits, which some attribute to being human weaknesses, are actually considered human strengths to be valued. In a time when we have celebrity CEO's, hedge fund managers, business owners, entrepreneurs, politicians, lawyers, etc. because they exhibit the qualities of status, wealth and power there hasn't been space for compassion and empathy. One does not "get ahead" and obtain status, power, wealth without a psychopathic personality. Keep in mind that our economy and civilizations are built on status, power, wealth and greed.
Until compassion and empathy for the Other's humanity are equal measures of a person's "success" we will not solve today's ills. We will continue to have psychopaths at the top while we teach our children to become psychopaths in order for them to get ahead and compete.
Answer: Thru the Grace of the Sat Guru who leads us into our higher consciousness, which is the ocean of love which Chopra alludes to.
John 14:6 "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Sorry Sat Guru, the Original Hippy copped on to the "I am the only way to Heaven" game long before you came onto the scene.
John 14:6 "Love is the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through love."
This should make sense now.
"Spirituality is the awareness of that domain of experience where we are aware our universality."
"Spirituality is the universality of that domain of awareness where we experience our awareness."
"Spirituality is the domain of that awareness of universality where we experience our universe."
Gene Roddenberry was right - God is nothing but a computer. (Probably programmed in BASIC)
Unfortunately, the history of religion has shown precisely the opposite tendency, as various faiths framgent under new interpretations and visions.
By way of thought experiment, let's instead imagine the opposite - a world with NO spirituality. No more religious crusades. No more mandated bigotry. No more Jihads. No more proselytizingNo more resources wasted on building cathedrals when we could be building hospitals. No more fundamentalists getting outraged over every perceived slight against their thin-skinned God. How much easier to seek commonality when the bonds of superstition have been lifted!
I believe in God, and this is not an attack on Chopra's views. His argument is that only spirituality can solve the worlds problems, and the method he expresses for which it will do so is by finding commonality and generating love. But it is not only spirituality which can generate love or find commonality, as any loving parent can tell you. If the tools we need are increased common-interest and additional love, spirituality has proven to be a stumbling block, not a solution. The premise is fundamentally flawed.
Unfortunately, these are not the people who run religious bureaucracies.
It is the religious bureaucrats, like the Pope and various Ayatollahs, priests rabbis,mullahs and imams that run the business of religion.
It is those people who work hard to entrench the fundamentalism and exclusivity of their narrow worldviews.
I simply find that he he failed to support this view.
Assuming you are correct that there is some kind of true spirituality that would be effective, but to date that spirituality has been corrupted by those who "run the business of religion," do you have a proposal for eliminating that corruption?
If not, what good is this supposedly true spirituality if it cannot be organized and harnessed, as history has apparently demonstrated that it cannot be?
And what is the difference between your post and a lame excuse for why religion has always failed?
Religion is bureaucratic and dogmatic; spirituality is individual and subjective.
I see no reason why a person couldn't be an atheist or an agnostic and still not have this sense of spirituality, minus the religious framework.
I think Chopra is saying that mankind's problems can only be solved by more individuals realizing that they are part of the wholeness of this universe. As each person sees the unity and interconnectedness of all things, they will naturally have a greater perspective by seeing the "Big Picture", if you will.
A greater perspective and sense of wholeness achieved by millions of people would change the world for the better, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, Chopra's assertion was that spirituality alone can engender this sense of connection, and that this sense of connection is the only thing that can solve the world's problems. While an increased sense of connection would help, it's not the only solution; and spirituality has, if anything, decreased this sense of connection by engendering differences and tribalism.
The quest for understanding leads to compassion. Spirituality not required.
Speaking of light---
Here's a chance or even several to go outside in various locations, (home, Fred's house, after a movie, etc.) and do some actual scientific data taking.
As you all know, I am a member of the International Dark Skies Association, (of course you knew that!), and this is just the type of data that we need to help understand and reduce.... are you ready? LIGHT POLLUTION! Not only would you be helping out one of my dearest causes, it's a great family and and friends opportunity, to go outside find some stars and maybe learn something about them, and us.
Just go to the site, download info and print star maps, find out where you are, observe, and submit data. Do it once, do it often, but do try to get good measurements when there aren't any clouds.
http://www.globeatnight.org/