spirituality

Just like "love," "consciousness," and so many other words, the term "spirituality" means different things to different people. For some, it's synonymous with religion. For others, it evokes images of incense and meditation cushions. Personally, the word usually gives me the creeps. It makes me think of new-age bliss ninnies with "healing crystals," or of solemn, Catholic types. It can even feel elitist — a label that separates people into the spiritual and the non-spiritual.

But perhaps it can mean something else — something simple, something shared by all sentient beings. For me, spirituality is nothing more (and nothing less) than my relationship with reality, and anything that clarifies or deepens that relationship. Of course, this definition raises questions: What is "reality"? Who is the "me" in this relationship? What does it mean to relate to reality?

Rather than trying to answer those questions, let me say what spirituality for me is not: it's not everything we've learned or been told about what is real or true. It's not the layers of beliefs, concepts, or dogmas — even (or especially) the ones we call "spiritual." These often get in the way. They cloud our view of what is immediate and alive.

To me, spirituality is the unlearning of what we think we know. It's the stripping away of all assumptions. It's a return — or a sudden collapse — into what is, before we name it. This doesn't have to be a slow path. It can happen at any moment. Certain places or experiences can help us drop the learned responses. Silence can do that. So can beauty. The vastness of a starry night. The horizon of the sea. The stillness of an empty chapel.

“When we recognize our place in the immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility joined, is surely spiritual.”

Carl Sagan

In this light, spirituality isn't about goals. It's not about becoming better or wiser. It's an undirected openness — like the way a child plays. We know this space. We miss it. But it's not lost. It's simply covered over by everything we think we've figured out. Some knowledge is useful, of course. But when it comes to who we are, what life is, or what anything means — what we think we know often blinds us to the simplicity of just being.

“In the end, spirituality is really about sobering up. Developing the courage to see life as it is — without having to inflate it with escapist love-and-light rhetoric, nor retreat into nihilistic resignation by declaring that everything is merely illusion and therefore meaningless.”

Joan Tollifson