Spirituality Guide

Intolerance of people with different lifestyles, beliefs, and any other little difference seems to be running rampant in today’s world. While fear and persecution all of all that is ‘different’ to those in power certainly isn’t anything new, it’s sad to see so many people haven’t learned over the centuries.

Even so-called spiritual ‘gurus’ who have claimed to have found a higher path beyond the structure of major religions sometimes gather together to form elitist groups who look disdainfully at ‘the unenlightened population’.

As far as I am concerned, if you have that sort of elitism in your heart, then you are not on a true path of spirituality.

Before you start calling me a lovey dovey tree hugging pacifist (smiling), I am not here to preach at you about loving everyone and every thing no matter what they do to you.

In the world we live in, I believe acceptance is more powerful (and more reasonable to expect of people) than forced love. I don’t believe most of us know enough of what love is to ‘love thy neighbor’. Acceptance, however, is a step towards love and is something we can most definitely learn.

Given how similar we all are – we’re all human, whether we decide to have sex with a man or a woman, believe in God or Allah or Amun-Ra, or believe everything has a spirit – it’s not exactly a surprise that we point out the differences to distinguish ourselves from the group.

However, using differences as a way to persecute each other is where we stray from the path of light and acceptance.

A good first step for finding your spiritual path is to identify your prejudices and examine why you have them. Perhaps in examining them you can find and root out false believes and taught prejudices.

In the days of Sumerian culture, a god named Enlil disliked the humans. He persuaded the council of gods to send a great flood to destroy humankind and not tell the humans about their imminent demise.

The great god Enki warned a human and that man built a boat in which to survive the flood. In order to find out if the flood waters have receded, this man sends out a swallow, a raven, and a dove. Eventually the waters receded and the man offers a sacrifice to the gods.

Sound familiar?

The truth is that ‘the great flood’ myth – a flood sent by one or more deities to destroy mankind – is a myth common to many cultures, histories, and religions. The one above, from Sumerian culture, is one of the oldest flood stories we know of.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and many people and groups take that to heart, picking and choosing the best of this and that to make something new and different.
And yet somewhat familiar.

Religion is no exception when it comes to this pick and choose philosophy, many of the stories and people from more recent religions sounding strikingly familiar to stories and people of older religions. The flood myth is only one example.

When it comes to the flood myth, you can conclude that a great flood – perhaps a world-circling tsunami or a meteor shower with enough ocean strikes to cause tidal waves in numerous areas – did indeed happen and the story worked its way into myth. Even despite the inconsistencies among some of the fine details of the story.

However, it’s not quite that easy to conclude such things when you come across other similarities.

This week I’m going to touch on similarities between some of the major religions at their basic points – forgiveness, love, happiness…

It’s hard. Spirituality is hard, gaining knowledge is hard, expanding the borders of your mind, finding out previous beliefs don’t quite work anymore…it’s can be quite hard.

Yes, you can find guides and gurus, but in today’s world, it’s not always easy to find a person who hasn’t or won’t take advantage of their power of authority as a guide or guru. It’s not easy to find groups without an alternative goal – usually money. It’s also not easy to find unbiased information.

So the simple answer to the question above is ‘no’. There is no map, no magic pill, no mystical wonderful thing that is going to give you all the answers. As many people have said thousands of times in many ways, it’s not the destination but the journey that is important.

Other people will feel differently, but I believe the best path to spirituality is knowledge.

As I have said before, the less knowledge you have, the easier you are to control. Blind faith and belief, while seemingly admirable to some, is not actually a good thing.

We live in a world that is composed a good part of people who feel if things don’t effect them directly, then they don’t have to do anything about it. It’s not surprising that, at the same time, people are searching for more meaning and purpose in their lives.

It’s not going to be easy, but wanting more is the first step.

Go out and find things out for yourself. You might find wonderful things.

But don’t take my word for it.

Is there a part of us as human beings that leads us to believe in a higher power? Are we biologically set up to interpret certain events as religious revelations?

In Dr. Dean Hamer’s book, The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into Our Genes, Hamer argues his hypothesis that human beings have a gene that might answer yes to those questions.

It’s important to point out that that The God Gene is not a theory that we have something in us that leads us to believe in God/dess – in whatever that title means for you. What Dr. Hamer is proposing is that events we interpret as a spiritual frame of mind, the ‘presence’ of God/dess, and other mystical or spiritual experiences.

I haven’t had the chance to read the book, but I found it yesterday while exploring in the library and thought it brought up an interesting subject.

The connection (or lack thereof) between religion/belief and science has always been one filled with arguments and disagreement. Dr. Hamer has been criticized for poorly presenting a potentially fascinating subject.

Even so, it is something that likely will be explored further in the future as we explore genes and their role in our lives.

A lot of very loud voices in the world would have you believe this sort of science exploration is evil and should not be continued despite the fact that humans are just barely scratching the surface when it comes to discovering what genes mean in our lives.

All I would like to say is that the less knowledge you have, the easier you are you are to control. Surely a creator or creators, if there are any, who endowed their creations with such curiosity would expect such studies…

“You’re either with us or against us.”

How many times have you heard that phrase?

I said in the last post: “Shades of grey belong to the open mind, while the closed mind faces only black and white. The closed mind may have a simpler and more organized existence, but it will never see all the true beauty the world and life can show it.”

We are living in a world where it increasingly becomes ‘if you’re not for, you’re against’, leaving little to no room to abstain or find a better way of doing things. While abstaining is often the path of not getting emotionally involved (and thus not hurt) in anything, but having that option is still something that needs to be respected.

A world of ‘for or against’ is a close minded world that does not acknowledge differences but seeks to destroy them. ‘For or against’ is how people get other people to blindly follow things that they might not agree with.

Better to serve the wolves than die with the sheep?

What can be done about it? That’s up to you.

If you so choose, you can go on your spiritual path to find your personal shades of grey. You can also spread the word about what you have found.

Or, you can submit.

The choice, as it has ever been, is yours. But as we walk as a race more towards ‘for or against’ it becomes more of a requirement for you to take action to not submit to your other human beings.

We live in a world where many people, sometimes even without realizing it, will take advantage of good intentions. That’s why it’s up to you to explore the spiritual path. The help and well meaning of other people will only get you so far.

Find your shades of grey and stand up to keep them.

Perhaps it is the never-ending questioning of what is truly right and wrong that has brought about the New Age movements and furthered spiritual studies. Or perhaps it is the other way around.

While spirituality, finding Self, and seeking Truth are certainly not new to more of the eastern philosophies, we are at a point where the ‘people of the west’ are exploring more into these subjects.

Why I say perhaps one has caused the other or vice versa is because when a person begins on the path of finding spirituality and self Truths, the journey will be filled with questions. It is very possible you will question every piece of your knowledge.

In questioning, you will find answers. You will often find even more questions, though, as frustrating as that is. But it is in the questioning that we find shades of grey. It is there we realize the beauty and complexity of even ‘simple’ life.

You are reading this post for the first time in this moment. Now that moment is gone. You can read the post again, but never again can you live in the moment that you first read this post.

Simple, and yet complex. Why can’t we go back? Why do humans have a longing to go back? Is there any way to stop the process of life? Is moving ever forward the true process of life?
You begin to see what I mean about questions.

The path to inner peace can be a complicated one but so fulfilling. The path to true spirituality and acceptance begins with an open mind. That is why shades of grey are so important.

Shades of grey belong to the open mind, while the closed mind faces only black and white. The closed mind may have a simpler and more organized existence, but it will never see all the true beauty the world and life can show it.

I mentioned yesterday that in the modern world (and in history as well) situations involving right and wrong are almost never black and white.

Take, for instance, killing. There are still rampant arguments today about whether or not the death penalty is morally okay to do.

Moving beyond the death penalty, we have people who kill each other for various reasons. Is an abused spouse who kills his/her spouse in self defense any less wrong than a mentally ill person who kills a random stranger?

‘Yes! Of course!’ you might say. But the spouse knows s/he is killing his/her spouse whereas the mentally ill person does not hold the same concepts of life and death that we do.

I’m not trying to start a debate about who is more justified, if killing is ever right, if ignorance is an excuse, or the other arguments you could get out of what I have said so far.

I am making the point that even in something that means so much to us – life and death – there is no black and white. Good, bad, right, wrong…these are all words that are filtered through the censors we have developed in our mind thanks to family, religion, media, and other social influences.

If you would like two book recommendations that will have you thinking about what is truly ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, then I recommend you read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Speaker of the Dead. The second book especially (which you should only read after the first) deals the subjects of life and death and human beliefs surrounding them.

*Picture by Justified

Yesterday I went shopping for a few storage things. The store was going to close soon, so I hurried to the cash register to check out.

When I entered the isle, I saw a fifty dollar note on the floor. The cashier wasn’t looking for it and hadn’t noticed it. I looked at it for a moment, picked it up, and then handed it to the cashier telling him that I had found it on the floor.

I later told my husband about the fifty and received a reaction I didn’t expect at all. He told me I should have kept it. There was no one in the isle to identify as the person who had dropped it, it wouldn’t go to the cashier, and the store would simply absorb it without a second thought.

But… But…

He was right. The store would not miss or love that fifty, and my husband and I could certainly use the extra money. The greatest good for the greatest amount of people would have been to keep it, but it didn’t belong to me.

The definition of moral is “concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles”.

But what is right and wrong? Would it have been wrong for me to keep the money?

It’s not always a clear matter of black and white to know what is right and what is wrong.

More to come later…

You’re walking down the street and see a small shop. It’s painted with blues, golds, and purples – much different to the mostly drab shops around it. Curious and with some spare time, you walk inside.

You immediately smell one or more of the incense or candles burning. You see candles, rocks, jewellery, books, clothing, candles, incense, and much, much more.

You have entered a New Age store.

So what is New Age and when did it start? What is it all about?

There is no concrete definition for what New Age is. However, it can be broadly described as large movement towards spiritual exploration and adding on additional beliefs to traditional religions.

New Age encompasses a lot of beliefs, ideas, and activities. It can also touch on a lot of subjects from astral to psychic to even new spiritual movements. Thus New Age isn’t probably something that should be easily disregarded.

The lovely thing about New Age beliefs is that they can often mesh easily with commonly held beliefs of the major religions. ‘New Agers’ often practice mainstream religion along with some of the ‘out there’ practices of New Age.

True, some beliefs go directly against others, but there is no denying a feeling of flexibility and acceptance.

New Age often incorporates some form of the mind-body-spirit awareness. Whether it comes in the form of alternative (or ‘natural’) medicines or the use of meditation for strengthening and focusing the mind, New Age beliefs and practices can offer a lot to any person without causing people to ‘betray’ their religion.

Start with the basics. When you walk into the store, look around. The first step to becoming more open-minded and informed is to not generalize or assume.

It is easy enough to throw around words like ’spirit’ and ‘Self’ when talking about matters of both religious of spiritual natures. However, what are they and what do they mean? What does it mean when spirit is Spirit versus spirit?

Unfortunately, three terms – Spirit, spirit, and Self – can be confusing. Because I will be using them on this blog, I will explain how I will use them to make things clearer.

Spirit as spirit (lowercase) is often associated with the soul and matters of spiritual growth and desires. The Spirit can also refer in the spiritual sense to the unified, universal consciousness.

The Spirit (capitalized) is often in reference to the religious holy spirit or deity. Mother Spirit and Mother Goddess sometimes mean the same thing.

However, the Spirit (capitalized) is also used in the same way Self (capitalized) is used. Self is in reference to you and not your body. The you, Self, that controls the physical body you are in.

Unfortunately, Self is sometimes interchanged with spirit (lowercase). It can get confusing, but confusing is usually what you get

For the purposes of this blog, I am combining the Spirit/Self (both capitalized) into one category. In my personal beliefs, these two words are for the most part interchangeable. When I refer to a god/goddess/deity/universal consciousness, I will refer to it as such.

(If this doesn’t make you frustrated with the English language, I don’t know what will.)

Please don’t try to read too hard into my decision. I like simplicity. That’s all.

As long as we are on the subject of definitions, I would like to define to other words that are easily interchanged and, in this case used incorrectly.

Atheists and Agnostics are often grouped together – most often under the Atheist label – as being of one belief when it comes to the disbelief of God or gods. While they are similar, they are still different.

Again, I am using definitions from Wikipedia.

[A]theism is the absence of belief in deities, alternatively called nontheism.

Agnosticism is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims—particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of God, gods, deities, or even ultimate reality—is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently unknowable due to the nature of subjective experience.

Put simply, Atheists firmly believe there are no deities while Agnostics are either unsure about the existence of deities or believe that deities are unknowable.

It’s easy to see why interchanging these could lead to trouble and unintended insults.

When it comes to people’s systems of belief, many people can be very sensitive. Just imagine a Christian being called a Mormon or a Muslim being called a Jew. People are often proud of their beliefs. People choosing to believe there are no deities is still a belief and you shouldn’t be surprised if you get the name of their belief system wrong.

Given the similarity in both the titles and the range of belief, it’s understandable how these two can be mistakenly switched. However, if you expect people to know the correct title of your belief system, you should do the same for others.

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Picture from HubbleSite.org

In my introductory post, I wrote that you can be spiritual without being religious, religious without being spiritual, or both spiritual and religious. Today people often connect the two, interchanging one for the other.

I thought defining the two terms would be the perfect place to start for this site.

According to Wikipedia: A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally organized around supernatural and moral claims, and often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law.

That definition covers my personal definition of religion: a set of beliefs, organized, centered around a being or beings.

Also according to Wikipedia: Spirituality, in a narrow sense, concerns itself with matters of the spirit. The spiritual, involving (as it may) perceived eternal verities regarding humankind’s ultimate nature, often contrasts with the temporal, with the material, or with the worldly.

I put up the Wikipedia definition of spirituality as well because it encompasses my personal definition of spirituality.

Of course, both can be a lot more complicated when applied personally, but in general definition I believe these definitions are a good place to start.

You can easily have one without the other, despite how much people today interchange the two. To be spiritual, you do not need a god or goddess. To be religious, you do not need to be concerned what’s beyond the material and the nature of humankind. (Though to not be concerned about those while religious seems somewhat strange to me.)

Many people are made to feel guilty and wrong for not identifying with one religion or another, and yet many of these people are still concerned with what is outside the material scope of their reality. Feeling pressured to label oneself can change or stop one’s personal growth and education in spirituality.

Likewise, many people find peace and belonging in identifying with a religious group but feel uncomfortable with what lies beyond what is dictated in their religion. Sometimes they feel like they are viewed as being close-minded.

When you realize the differences between spirituality and religion, you can begin to explore your personal Truths without having the ’shoulds’ in life directing your path. The perceived ’shoulds’ in your life will deter you from your Self faster then almost anything else.

I have spent quite a bit of time wondering exactly how I should introduce myself and my plans for this site. In the end, it is easiest to introduce myself briefly and focus on an even mix of what this site will be and won’t be.

I am a woman who has been writing in one form or another for most of her life. I am married with no children. I do not have any degrees in psychology, religion, or history.

I am not a self-professed guru or leader of any sort. I am not here to persuade you to convert to a different religion, to make you feel guilty if you don’t have a religion or know about spirituality.

I am, like many people, on a path of self exploration.

This site is not going to be what it once was. Older posts will remain in a folder called ‘Previous Authors’ but I will not continue to write in the same way.

It is my feeling that this site should be what it is titled – a guide in spirituality.

Spirituality and religion are two different things. You can have either one or both. I will touch on them both on this site, but I feel that is unavoidable. What I will try to encourage you to do is look critically at both – at everything I present – so you can hopefully recognize things that ring true for you.

I’m not here to judge. I have opinions and feeling about things, but I don’t feel this site should be all about those things. And so, I have an open door to everyone, no matter their background. I hope you’ll extend the same courtesy to me.

Be well. I’m looking forward to the journey.