Spirituality

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Years ago I visited the Australian 'outback'.Last week my partner did the same, we were just talking about the feelings we had visiting some of the significant aboriginal areas. We both agree that you get a 'feeling' about these places I put this down to a sense of deep history plus the realisation that it might be 40 + degrees in the sun but where you are is cool and there is water available. In other words its a feeling of awe because of the history and the suitability of the place. My partner sees it differently she thinks the 'feeling' is one of spirituality and oneness.

Made me wonder what peoples views on spirituality are.

Last edited by DentArthurDent on 23 Aug 2008, 6:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's a function of the nervous system like a headache or a sneeze or the taste of fried onions. Different stimulants result in a different reaction.

There's a center in the brain which produces na enlightenned experience of oness. Recent studies oncluce that all enligthenned/mystical phenomena can be boiled down to neurological processes... but so what?

People think that enlightenment is about super powers, turning bread into wine and so on. Yet for the hindu the definition of salvation is the escape from suffering. Achieving moksha, liberation freedom.
So what if this freedom is produced by epilepsy?
I don't care.
That's one cool epilepsy for me, I mean you live totally in the present moment you're not bothered by anything else, you still are sane enough to function effectively in the world (as many enlightenned people have: krishnamurti, maharaj, maharshi,)


You see those meditations they give you, the watching your breath etc. Theoretically their purpose is to still the mind and allow therefore to achieve the knowledge of your true self, which can only be achieved when you trancend verbal-thought processes.
Those methods generally are slow-working so people generally spend 40 years meditating. People in india if they are spiritually inclined send their kids in their early childhood to ashrams, and temples. Many of those kids achieve enlightenment. Now why is that?

Simply their brains are so flexibile the meditations actually work for them. Watching their breath and staring at a mandalla has a far greater stilling effect on them than on someone who's brain isn't so suggestible to change.


If you would read the account of realization of one of the more-pupular enligthenned cheeses out there named Eckhart Tolle you would notice that what he describes is actually a pretty accurate description of a frontal lobe - epilepsy fit.
http://www.inner-growth.info/power_of_n ... e_home.htm
(see eckhart tolle's spiritual transformation )


That's one happy epilepsy

Spirituality has to do with a persons spirit, an inner feeling of depth or intensity. To my mind it doesn't necessarily have to link with a belief in a God - or supernatural being. More to do with a depth of emotion. People usually just communicate on a social level, but at times of crisis communication can happen on a more spiritual level. At times like this words aren't always needed. To communicate on a more spiritual level, can mean a something a simple as touch, a way of looking a someone and communicating with our eyes rather than words.

People can find spiritual strength from within themselves. Music or a love of learning or enjoying nature can serve to nourish the inner spirit.

A feeling for a place of beauty or a feeling for what might have gone on before could provide a sense of spirituality.

My thoughts

Last edited by marieclaire on 23 Aug 2008, 10:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sense of Spirituality == Mild Euphoria, induced by endorphins produced by stress, chanting, singing, prayer, or a new or difficult environment. It usually wears off quite quickly.

It's the same sense that one feels when they've "fallen in love" with their "soul-mate" - no more and no less than a biochemical reaction in the brain.

^ Agreed.

Although, there is something that I wonder and I ask, can this possibly have a positive aspect to the health of the person when experiencing it, not only mental but physical?

^^ Certainly! Who doesn't want to feel good? And when you feel better, you perform better!

Religious chanting, singing, and praying produces endorphins in the brain.
The person feels better, and their performance improves.

:: Religion is good for you!

Hey ... maybe that's what this religionism is really all about, eh? No wonder fundies are so down on alcohol, marijuana, and other mind-altering drugs - they're too much competition!

Spirituality is to me, the act of a'spir'ation. To become more than what one is, more complete, in aposition. I think the latin root is spir'it'us, en'spir'it'us, or something similar.

The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin "spiritus" (breath), whuch translates into the Greek "pneuma" (πνευμα), also meaning "breath."

"Inspiration" means to breathe in, while "Expiration" is to breathe out, and "Aspiration" is to inhale vomit into one's lungs.

An Aspiration is also a wish or a dream.

Spirituality has more to do with breathing than with anything mythically mysterious, or any personal fantasies.

I had not considered the word aspiration from that perspective. Adds a cyclic element to the etymology. I had thought about it as A'spiration vs De'spiration. I wonder if that is where we get the word Desparate. The thing about ancient languages is that one word can represent many concepts and ideas. I imagine the latin spiritus thus represents the concept of motion in the sense of renewal and growth. Spiritus, breath, the inward/outward cyclical flow.

Spirit, Spiral, Inspire, Expire, Aspire, Spire

People can make the connection though.
As that definition, in other and simplier words, would mean Life, so in that aspect Spirituality could come to be the equivalent of Life, in that sense, I suppose, as only living beings breathe.

So it wouldn't be that hard for some to make the connection of Life to Soul to Spirit and to imagine how the spirit must be and what happens to it when someone dies.