What is spirituality?

Spirituality is everyday life. It is kindness. It is acceptance. It is practice and it is enlightenment, as well as the opposite of all these.

Spirituality is a redundant word, because, somewhat like love, it has been overused. If we are to use it with any specificity, as I think we should, we need to gather together all I have just said, together with the disparate definitions offered by others who are concerned with the so-called higher worlds and undertake a house-clearing, so that we know what we are talking about. If not, let's think of a new word altogether! --because the function of language is to communicate.

Today we have a Tower of Babel situation; just look around at the vast array of spiritual teachers, religious traditions, new and ancient spiritual philosophies which are sometimes confused, vague or obtuse, but always confusing. If we are to truly communicate, I don't think that spirituality should be any different to cooking or medicine or politics. Within these spheres of endeavor, if you are as confused as people seem to be in the spiritual sphere, we would be speaking nonsense with devastating consequences.

So what is the definition we should use to inform us?

Spirituality is the term that describes the higher functioning of human beings. Without a spiritual dimension, human beings are engaged solely with animalistic concerns, like belonging to a group, mating and procreation, acquisition and physical security. In the intermediate stages of human development we are concerned with identity, socialization, compassion for others and individual responsibility. Spiritual philosophies and methodologies are those which envelope all of these and go on to assume a higher aspiration for human fulfillment, an intrinsic need, felt by many, that we are more than we seem to be and that the world of appearances is not all there is.

Like Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

Yes, like self-actualization and peak experiences in Maslow's model. But also like the insights of the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, the Course in Miracles, Zen Buddhism, mystical Christianity, Sufism, and on and on through transpersonal systems and spiritual maps too numerous to mention. But what they have in common is human beings striving for the ultimate understanding in the belief that something elusive that is beyond the world of appearances gives meaning and significance to life.

Why is spirituality a concern of relatively few people?

Spirituality is universal. It is everyone's concern to discover who they really are, through physical, psychological, mental, soulful and spiritual levels of the human predicament. We cannot judge how individual people are engaged with this, but arguably whatever a person is doing -- thinking, working, forming relationships, vacationing -- is an attempt to balance, engage with and understand self and the world. It's a response to the quiet, tacit question of existence.

And that question is?

Who am I? No one is free of the consequences of this question. The only difference is in how we choose to answer it; in self-referral, self-definition or self-transcendence.

What about the etymological origins of the word? Spirit means breath, doesn't it?

Spiritusmeans breath and espiritus means the breath of God, which is the word from which we derive our term inspiration. So spirit is about breath, the divine breath prajna, the interchange with the universe we experience when we breathe in and breathe out. When I breathe in the universe breathes out or inspires me; when I breathe out the universe breathes in or I inspire it. Which is it? From the spiritual standpoint there is no difference, because the universe and I are the same.

Spirituality then is about a relationship between soul, spirit and body?

Spirituality is also associated with questing in the form of a journey. It appears that we have to undertake a spiritual voyage, a quest, or some sort of ordeal in which we are transformed in some way through suffering. The forward moving narrative of that ordeal, the active search for that undertaking has been key to notions of spirituality for centuries. Depending on where and when we were brought up it took the form of the Pilgrim's Progress, the Ramayana, the legend of Siddhartha, Dante's journey through the underworld, the Native American vision quest and so on. What each of these narratives has in common is the principle theme of striving towards a spiritual goal through effortful persistence, strong will and determination.

Curiously very few of these spiritual maps see beyond effort. It is as if we are rewarded only when we push ourselves hard. Yet spiritual realization itself is epitomized by acceptance, receptivity, gentleness and surrender -- all very soft attributes. Reading these accounts you would think that the only way to heaven is through hell.

And isn't it?

Heaven and hell are points of view. You enter either one in any moment through your predisposition, which hinges on your attachment to the ego, or separation from the rest of existence. As diverse examples, both Jacques Lusseyrian during his incarceration in World War II and St John of the Cross in a Toledo jail in the Sixteenth Century experienced profound spiritual and divine epiphanies, in spite of enduring the most horrendous physical and mental mistreatment. Another example is Laurens van de Post who taught thousands of POWs in Java to resist bitterness and forgive their captors so that they survived the ordeal psychologically and emotionally intact, through adopting a spiritual strategy.

Does spirituality entail disidentification from the body?

Rather you relate spiritually to your body, as well as to everything else. What this means is that you center yourself in the essence that is common to everything that arises in consciousness and sense the source of all that arises.

Everything that arises at some point also ends?

But that which has no ending is the essence of spirituality. The spiritual quest is to discover and become one with the source of consciousness, the root of attention. Spirituality lies between what we call the mystical and transcendence; it is not an end in itself, our intention should not be merely to practice spirituality, but to penetrate further to where it leads. So, our understanding of mysticism, or the self-directed mystical path (as distinct from a religious path), leads us on a spiritual journey to self-transcendence and the meeting with the Divine.

For some this is God, for others Buddha Nature, infinity, the Absolute or Brahman. But all of these terms are intellectual constructs; they are merely ideas. There is only one appropriate response to a meeting with the Divine -- awe-inspired, mystical, breathing silence, because in that great calm one finally encounters one's true self, which is beyond ideas of mind, interpretation and description.

Spirituality leads to a meeting with the Divine?

Or a meeting with yourself; it's the same thing. To know yourself, to find out who you truly are you must employ spiritual methods, remain constant to a spiritual practice, but then you have to shed that practice, leave it completely to arrive in the place it has been taking you. This is one of the difficulties in the Modern Era, as well as in ancient times. People are loath to destroy; they'd rather build up. Today we call it materialism. Chögyam Trungpaeven coined the term 'spiritual materialism' to describe how spiritual practitioners become attached to their accomplishments and their practice.

Spirituality is concerned primarily with inner aspects of the human being. It is true that a spiritual being shows certain traits, like love, gentleness, compassion and forgiveness. But none of these are worth anything at all unless they are genuine, truly experienced from the heart center of the person exhibiting them. To engage with the heart center one of the insights we must experience is that we do not lack... anything! Nothing whatsoever is wanting in the human experience when it is felt, seen, touched and experienced fully. When this insight has been understood fully, one has this experience of inner emptiness; it is profoundly receptive and resonating and it enables you to relate authentically with the rest of the world. It is the state of being-ness inside you, without activity, restlessness of any kind, without disturbance -- inner or outer -- it is solid, unwavering; you wouldn't even call it spiritual, it would be more exact really to call it one's natural state.

Is this 'natural state' available to all?

Yes of course. But you have to want it, and you have to want it badly. Also you must possess an inner integrity, a deep honesty about it and you must accept no substitutes! Because the spiritual path is beset with such distractions, difficulties, seductions and pretenses, urgings of the ego to let it all go and settle for some quasi-spiritual state that would be exalted from the point of view of the novice, the person who aspires to the spiritual rewards of the path.

What can you do in this quasi-spiritual state?

Set up as a spiritual teacher! Play superior, tell people what to do, entice others to act as followers or disciples, write a book about your 'spiritual' experiences, your enlightenment, while all the time you are simply preening your ego. It is hardly uncommon in this dark time; the period the Hindus predicted we would be in now -- the kali yuga.

But the interest in spirituality, meditation and yoga is surely growing?

Well, interest isn't necessarily enough. The spiritual world is full of dilettantes and pleasure-seekers and self-aggrandizement. This is not to detract from the sincere practitioners, the applied ones, but even there you see you can come across an ego trap, because some people's ego is kept alive by enticements like 'I will never succeed', 'I'm not good enough' -- it is simply the antithesis of 'Look how great I am', 'I have succeeded because I am better than the rest'. Spiritually there's no difference between these two points of view; they both serve the preening of the ego state.

So what should we do? I am beginning to see what you mean about the spiritual path being beset by seductions.

Don't be seduced, apply yourself diligently, don't stop until you get to the end of your spiritual journey, pick a teaching and a teacher that makes sense and don't take anything on face value, rather question everything and don't think for a minute that you can do it on your own.

Everyone needs a guru?

Everyone needs guidance from someone who functions as a teacher in their life and on their spiritual path, to preside over their spiritual endeavor and correct and encourage and question and cajole and provide a model of an authentic human being in the world. This is how we preserve faith, know that it is possible to succeed and cultivate the commitment and courage to carry on.

BLOG entry #100

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘What is Spirituality? The Quiet, Tacit Question of Existence’ was first published in 2011.

If you have been involved in either therapy or counselling, or spirituality and meditation, in recent years you have probably encountered two basic, polarized viewpoints concerning personality. Essentially it amounts to this: therapists are pro-personality (and its improvement through healing neurosis etc.) while spiritual teachers proclaim personality a big waste of time, since neurotic or not, you are more than your personality.

This is not particularly surprising, since therapy and counseling tend to be concerned with the individual, while spiritual practices are concerned with higher matters. But it does lead the novices and beginners into a quandary where they are faced with the decision of what to do about personality. On the one hand, therapy could be an expensive, futile effort to better the personality, whereas, on the other hand, spiritual practice may offer an excuse to leave personal problems behind, with the justification that you are moving on to more lofty concerns.

In the extensive time I have been engaged in therapy and spirituality I can say that I have discovered the answer to this controversy! And I don't say it without reluctance and a certain caution, since my answer is liable to offend both camps -- therapists and spiritual teachers. Perhaps my answer is less a rejection or abandonment of one viewpoint for another and more of a synthesis. This may be an answer of the best kind - the kind that doesn't marginalize or dismiss anyone's experience or viewpoint. For my answer, while radically new and innovative, does not fundamentally disagree with either point of view, but considers each appropriate to the complex, total unfolding process of our human nature and potential.

My answer to the dilemma is to propose a third band of human experience. I call this "the authentic self" and since I am not using any unusual words I need to define this term, because I do mean something specific. The authentic self, in the way I use the term, is the bridge between the personality and the spiritual self. It is arrived at usually, but not always, after a lengthy period of intensive, deep, applied and consistent inner work. This inner work consists of a journey of self-discovery in which one circumvents the self, becoming increasingly aware of the conscious and unconscious material that comprises one's sense of self, or ego. This involves character, which is essentially defensive strategy or an intelligent, protective reaction to early conditioning, which becomes increasingly calcified and adapted throughout adolescence and adult life. Character is composed of the way in which we survive and protect ourselves from inner and outer stimuli and ultimately avoid really meeting life. It creates a self-imposed prison -- limitations in which we feel falsely safe.

Self-discovery also involves cultivating our awareness of personality, or the way in which character (defenses and strategies) is experienced. Both inwardly and outwardly we erect a barrier to experience -- life events and other people -- which is a mask, façade or persona which eclipses the real person, or our true nature.

We also raise emotional and behavioural patterns out of the murky stratum of the unconscious, out of unawareness, and see just how much our life is lived automatically, as an automaton without real human response, emotional feeling, resonance, empathy or even awareness.

The process of self-discovery involves witnessing, reliving and remembering, practicing awareness and releasing pent-up emotions, returning the bodymind, through self-regulating, self-healing and self-referral, to a natural state of balance, ease and relaxation, and opening to insight and experience. In the short-term the experience is enriching, enlivening and full of dramatic changes. In the long-term through achieving personal wholeness, soul nourishment and insights we reach a threshold, a bridge, a chasm - all variously transitional metaphors that signify a quantum leap, a fourth dimensional change that I have termed "the threshold of transformation".

The significance of this threshold, and what distinguishes it from all the changes that have gone before, is that is effects are irreversible -- it is a step from which there is no going back. Once taken, this step across the threshold will lead you to the condition of authenticity and intimacy with your own true nature.

This insight renders the controversy about personality redundant. But it does depend on our ability to clearly distinguish the psychological from the spiritual.

BLOG entry #99

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Spirituality and Personality’ was first published in 2011.

The activity of truly being with another is not the exclusive domain of so-called experts -- psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, counselors and assorted health professionals. It is an innate ability of human beings to empathize and give attention to each other.

This ability has been largely eclipsed in the modern world in which our personal concerns and mental chatter often absorb most of our attention. The true meaning of psychotherapy is 'attending to soul' and this is an activity we can all offer each other. The art of being with another can be practiced through developing the innate tools you already possess in abundance: listening, caring, kindness. Out of your natural wisdom you have the ability to attend to soul -- your own and another's.

We live in a time when inner riches and innate wisdom have become ignored and discredited. We have learnt to hand over our natural healing abilities to outward authorities: organizations and 'experts', who are very often people who know no better than us.

People need to speak and be heard for physical and mental health, and individual well-being. This arena is not innately the exclusive domain of experts. It is a natural skill of all people to be with one another and to practice giving and receiving. It is a prerequisite of friendship, relationship and intimacy. Without it we feel separate and alienated.

Today, we are more in need of counseling and therapy skills than ever. The pace and pressures of the modern world have reached such an intensity that only a person who is willing and prepared to compromise their integrity and inner well-being can be expected to function, let alone be relaxed, aware and happy. If we cannot find someone who is willing and able to listen to us, then we are in danger of either ignoring what is going on in our lives, or putting ourselves in the hands of professionals who have an agenda, which is usually prescribed by the government of the country on which the service provided is funded and to which it owes its existence. The values that the service is usually based on are functionality and efficiency. To return a person to efficient functioning in their place of work, so that they can be considered a valid member of society, is most likely to be the overriding goal.

The individual well-being, spiritual development and personal growth of the individual are ignored, as if they were of no consequence. Occasionally an apologetic gesture is made; perhaps there is not enough funding for depth counseling, because resources are stretched. But funding is allotted to issues which are considered more important and consequently prioritized. In the modern world we may dispute those issues which are given priority by the people in power who profess to be acting on our behalf.

Quite apart from the morality of this approach, it is not even sensible given that most people's presenting problems (or what appears to be 'wrong' with them) are merely at the top of a pile of deeper issues. By definition these deeper issues may remain buried deep inside, but they will not go away. They will reappear repeatedly in one form or another, pleading to be dealt with. Thus we have health authorities collapsing under the weight of referrals for disease, surgery and psychosomatic symptoms, which consultants are often unable to explain, or treat effectively. The deep, underlying cause of illness is ignored. Indeed the question is not even asked, since the concept of an emotional, spiritual or holistic cause or basis for physical illness is not considered.

Surgery or medication often lead to further expensive treatments for patients who find themselves on a treadmill of specialist hospital appointments with well-meaning but not necessarily wise medical practitioners. Doctors are sometimes complacent. Routinely seeing people at their most vulnerable they may be forgiven for feeling superior. But acting superior and taking advantage of the unequal situation to routinely abuse the trust of patients and exhibit sexist, patriarchal and prejudiced tendencies may be less easily forgiven.

Psychotherapists, psychiatrists, medical practitioners, social workers, mental nurses and counselors are people too, with their own personal problems and difficulties. It is not so much being free of problems that make you a good listener who is able to help another. It is the ability to be aware of the problems you have in your own life and the skill to deal with them wisely by not allowing them to claim your time and emotional space at inappropriate times.

In the contemporary world many, if not most, people could use someone who can really listen to them, who can really make the kind of psychic space in which another can enter. Yet they may never be prepared to admit that they need help or seek out a 'professional'. They may not feel they deserve to spend money on themselves for something as intangible to them as their own well-being. They may have little confidence that a 'professional' could help them (often with good reason) and they may be put off by the stigma our modern world puts on people who seek help, labeling them neurotic, low-functioning, depressive and dysfunctional.

Curiously, the vocabulary for human pathology far outweighs the vocabulary for well-being. We seem to be satisfied with a wide and varied lexicon for the things that are wrong with us, while ignoring the range of positive states and not even granting them a description. The words used in a culture set the tone for its consciousness. What does it say about the western world that we have multiple descriptions of mental disease in thick text books but not more than a few, often bland, expressions for positive mental health?

The art of being with another, attending to soul with care, compassion and kindness has a double payoff. As listeners we become more calm, peaceful and inwardly balanced. Through tolerating another's distress we learn to highlight the inner strengths that we can use to deal more effectively with our own personal issues. When we dedicate ourselves to helping and encouraging people to develop their natural healing abilities and skills through listening, self-awareness and being with people and listening to them with receptivity, understanding and wisdom, we create a healthy, healing cycle.

BLOG entry #98

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Psychotherapy Heresy: Part 2 – The Art of Being With Another’ was first published in 2011.

During my years practicing psychotherapy, which is arguably an activity, rather than a job title, I have held the secret longing that people, through deepening in their conscious awareness, develop listening skills and empathetic skills which would enable and empower them to heal themselves and others. This thought is a kind of heresy (since the time of Freud and Jung the status of psychotherapy has aspired to elevate itself to religious status), implying disregard for therapy training, regulation, registration, licensing and general professional paraphernalia, which as someone (I forget who it was) once said would make Jesus an illegal counselor.

But while I have personally endured the rigors of personal therapy over many years, training - both theoretical and experiential, therapist's supervision et al, all of which gives me tremendous respect for the 'profession' of psychotherapy, I inwardly feel and maintain that therapy is a natural response to human issues - and a response which has become complex and to some degree extreme - a possibly over-intricate response to what is arguably the maddest world the human species has ever inhabited.

In the pursuit of happiness, we inevitably get further away from it. This is, of course, because we are going in the wrong direction. Happiness is inner - not outer. Or to put it a little more clearly: unless you have mined the internal seam of happiness in the inner realms, you cannot expect any person or event in the outer world to bring happiness to you. It is the same argument as the one that says that unless there is some part of God within you, you cannot conceive, perceive or experience God (actually you don't experience God, because the spiritual realms operate according to entirely different laws, which transcend the relative world, but here we have entered deep waters indeed) and this too would have been, of course, heresy once upon a time not too long ago, before the holistic era we presently live in.

It is this business of the inner world (or inner enquiry or inner journey) that tends to put outwardly orientated people (i.e. most of us) off. After all, you have nothing to show outwardly for inner exploration - no photos, no certificates, no medals - only the subjective benefits that may accrue and influence your life positively. We live in an age of overwhelming materialism, which places great emphasis on the individual, as never before in human history. What we possess - how many qualifications, attainments, belongings - defines us in a world primarily attuned to manifested individual wealth.

Before you dismiss this argument, notice that the predominant communication between individuals is professional activity, material struggle and accomplishment, what they have been doing, where they live, how many children or grandchildren they have. Rarely will they talk about inner states of emotionality, spirituality, energy, psychic experience or interpersonal intimacy skills; at least this is by no means as commonplace.

Yet this area of inner experience is precisely where life becomes meaningful and therefore worth living. Only when we can be with ourselves and inhabit the inner realms fully can we get close to realizing our true potential, evolving as human beings and living a reciprocal relationship to the outer world which is nourishing and enriching, vibrant and authentic.

To be with ourselves we must truly learn the skills which enable and empower us to be with another. This is the topic I will discuss in the second part of this article.

BLOG entry #97

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘Psychotherapy Heresy: Part 1 – Shouldn’t Anyone Be Able To Do It?’ was first published in 2011.

A young friend proffered these questions about existence, destiny and God. They comprise a metaphysical discussion and the themes seem to me to be extraordinarily pertinent.

Why do we exist?

Your question presupposes a reason outside the event itself, as well as a ghostly 'we'. There are many levels of existence, many realms and worlds. Existence arises from the timeless, spaceless absolute spontaneously, for no reason at all. It is merely the reflection of consciousness... you might say it is God's way of knowing him/herself.

Does destiny exist?

Destiny is the surrender of individual consciousness to life. Really it is more important how you live than what you do in your life. Your destiny is the essence of the individual life, because it is outside your control or personal will to influence events. So destiny is surrender.

Does humanity have a common object?

To know itself.

Why is it important for man to prove the existence or not of God?

God is traditionally the name given to the numinous, un-knowable, spontaneous aspects of creation. Proving that God exists is undesirable, because of the issue of faith. But more importantly the existence of God would prove that we exist and this is why it is important to human beings.

Is there really a duality between body and soul?

No, because in reality there is no duality at all.

Are we made of two different substances (body and soul)?

The ghostly 'we' again! To understand the relative world of appearances (or duality) it is useful to consider the physical body, soul and spirit separately. But the separation does not exist in reality: they are one.

Do we need to find the meaning of life?

Life has no meaning and neither do you. The meaning of life is itself!

Why, whenever we question the origin of the world and of the universe do we always come to a point where we can't carry on going back in time?

Because everything takes place in the present and even that isn't quite true. There is one single eternal moment and in this moment the universe arises and subsides. In reality it is absolute (what we think of as God) untouched by events, unaffected by relativity, space and time.

Why is it in the nature of man to ask questions if nobody can answer them?

The unique capacity of human beings is self-reflection and self-reflection leads to our true nature. Asking questions is the action of self-reflection and, perhaps inadvertently, you have stumbled upon a great truth: Nobody can answer them. This is right.

Does anyone have answers?

The one who asks the questions has the answers.

How should one deal with the certainty of death?

By knowing what you really are, you will transcend death.

Does a life beyond death exist?

Does a life before death exist? The question is redundant - find out who you are first. Only what is born can die.

When we talk about death, is it only bodily?

No, the body is already dead. Only the spirit in the body is truly alive... and deathless, because it is eternal.

Is spirit the same as soul?

If we are to use the two words then let's mean different things by them. Soul is the way in which the physical-emotional-mental entity we call the self experiences the elemental world through the senses. Spirit manifests in human beings as the individual expression of the eternal (what we call God) and it is characterized by awareness which is a reflection of consciousness.

What is the relationship between soul and brain?

Soul relates to the world through the senses; brain interprets the experiences and rationalizes and intellectualizes them.

How does the brain control the thoughts of the soul?

The soul has no thoughts, only the brain.

In what way do people interact?

Often very badly! Always automatically, without spontaneity and authenticity, until they know themselves and become real. 

Is a particular life (way of life) important for the evolution of Earth, human beings and the universe?

The life of awareness, striving towards consciousness, involving oneself exclusively in searching for truth, wisdom, love and Self-realization. This is the ultimate fulfillment of humanity and the only thing of any real importance.

Is human evolution by chance?

Humanity is neither evolving nor not evolving. In its true nature it simply 'is'. That is the secret; that is what we have to surrender to and live by and this is our true relationship with God and the universe, because it is the truth and incarnate wisdom.


BLOG entry #96

This article by Richard Harvey was originally published at http://www.therapyandspirituality.com/articles/  and it is part of an ongoing retrospective series of blogs. ‘A Metaphysical Discussion: From Existence to Incarnate Wisdom’ was first published in 2011.