About the usage of spiritual hunger.
What is spiritual hunger? To speak about what is spiritual, it may be easier to begin with what is not considered “spiritual”. Hunger is a good analogy for what is missing because it is felt at a visceral level and it is not necessary to verbalize hunger very well in order to communicate it to someone else. Everyone experiences hunger to one degree or another. Even with physical hunger, many things may satisfy this hunger right now, but the nature of hunger is not changed by momentary satisfaction. The same is true with emotional desires. The same may be true with what might be called spiritual hunger.
It makes sense to set aside “spiritual” for now in order to begin speaking clearly and simply. We set it aside in order to create a common language and understanding, not to deny that it may be important. Once a common language is created, we may speak together; before then, we may use the same words without ever crossing paths.
So what is “hunger”? Hunger is experienced as a lack, as something missing. Concomitant with hunger, we usually feel a desire for an end to hunger, experienced as a desire for food. So there is the lack, the desire for satisfaction, and the belief that satisfaction will come with the fullness achieved by consuming food. This lack or emptiness may be seen as one end of the arrow on a compass or as the weighted end of a pendulum. Pursuing the wrong direction on the arrow of the compass, or going farther in the direction of the weighted end of the pendulum will take us farther from where we want to be, farther from the center or fulcrum.
Physically, hunger is a sign indicating a need for food. It is good as a sign, but better for the organism to have food than hunger. Emotionally, the same could be said. Mentally, hunger may be different. Since humans experience body, emotions, and mind, it is important to see the integration but it may be helpful to see the distinctions. Physical hunger points towards food, but emotional emptiness or lack often causes confusion, agitation, or stupor. Emotional confusion may cause misinterpretations of physical impulses or unawareness of physical impulses, emotional turmoil, and mental muddle. If we accept the general existence of emotional hunger and emotional confusion, where do we begin?
The complexity of emotions, the confusion engendered, and the added complexity brought in with attempts to communicate and means of communicating may overload the capacity of groups to come to common understandings through beginning in emotions. Like spirituality, I would like to set emotionality aside for now in order to set up a common language and understanding. The purpose is to simplify communications, not to diminish the complexity or importance of emotionality. With clear communications, greater subtlety can be conveyed, leading to a deeper and broader shared understanding.
The point of departure, then, will be mental emptiness in order to encourage–not a lack of emotionality or spiritual inspiration, but–a beginning in simplicity and tranquility. When one is “full” mentally, there is no space for anything new, for growth. In this manner, opposed to physical and emotional hunger, mental hunger can be beneficial. Mental emptiness, without being prejudged as good or bad, is a space for growth but not necessarily a demand for expansion. Mental emptiness may be a sign of need or an indicator of openness or both. Mental emptiness is a space in which commonality may be created and a space in which difference can be encouraged.
How is mental emptiness utilized effectively? One way of utilizing mental emptiness or relative openness is to recognize this space and rest in this space. Through repeated visitation or time spent in this space, tranquility develops. Another way of utilizing this mental emptiness is more curious, active, questioning. Since we do not experience mental states as separated from emotional and physical experiences, in the moment we are aware of mental openness, we may also be aware of emotional and/or physical hunger or desire or lack.
Remaining mindful of–aware of and mentally open to–these hungers without addressing them leads one to equanimity as familiarity with emptiness and awareness of tranquility stabilizes. But it is also possible to answer these particular hungers specifically. It is difficult to answer these hungers well when reacting out of emotional turmoil. When reacting out of emotional turmoil, neither physical food nor mental solutions are consistently found to be satisfactory, but since it is not possible in most cases to wish for and achieve particular emotional states, we attempt physical or mental solutions.
The purpose then is to recognize and leverage hunger or dissatisfaction by incorporating mental openness into our awareness of the situation. The reason for incorporating mental openness is that being led by emotional confusion, excess, or lack yields incomplete and unsatisfactory results. With emotional confusion, the compass needle spins or we confuse one end for the other. With mental openness, hunger pulls and the direction forward is clear. Instead of being a hindrance, hunger becomes the motivating energy for direct change.
By leveraging dissatisfaction through mental openness, we direct our actions based on experience and awareness. The energy for action comes from this body, these relationships, this situation; the direction comes from tranquility. The question becomes one of how to communicate openness and the actual experiences of many people in one common situation. If this common understanding of hunger is established, each individual adds to the common understanding of the group by speaking sincerely about their particular hunger. If a common understanding of mental openness is established like this, each individual is responsible for attempting mental openness and the group is best served by supporting the individuals’ openness to tranquility. It becomes obvious that each individual is also best served by finding or maintaining their own sense of tranquility.
It is extremely important to recognize that wisdom may arise from tranquility but that it may be different from tranquility. When one’s house is on fire, it may be best to be calm internally, but it is also best to be alert and active. We could say that wisdom is the actions that fit each situation and leave it open to discussion as to what actions actually fit each situation. This definition avoids a false separation between understanding and doing, body and mind, etc. This manner of working with the definition means that discovering wisdom is a process and may be a shared or common process. Two heads are better than one in this sense.
Just as an individual may feel that tranquility is a sufficient “answer” to dissatisfaction, people in groups may convince each other that the comfort which comes from being part of a group is sufficient. How do we note the difference between tranquility and stupor or sleepiness, the difference between wisdom and a sense of comfort (which may simply justify inaction)? It may be impossible to theoretically answer this question in a manner in which everyone considers adequate. That is not problematic. Everyone to some extent demands that wisdom fit where they are now; otherwise, it may be academically interesting but it may be something other than wisdom–closer to intelligence. This simply points to the fact that wisdom must be lived or practiced; it cannot be prescribed or purely abstract.
The question evolves in the direction of how do we recognize and practice wisdom?. While pat answers may be insufficient, we commonly rely on a constant stream of information as processed by the human body. In one sense, then, we can see wisdom as the practice of keeping the emotions and thinking from interfering with the healthy processes of the physical body. For this suggestion to be sensible, we must take a holistic view of the body, not an empiricist’s view. This suggestion rests on a simple truth which is that truth is a feeling in the body.
How does one recognize truth? There are infinite answers to such a question, but we may point this question in a particular direction by offering an antithetical set of questions. What is the feeling of deceit? What does it feel like to lie or be lied to? How do you know if something is a lie? It is extremely rare or nonexistent for people to retain a lie without a feeling of tension or constriction or effort. (In some cultures, lying is considered more a form of creativity. In such cultures there is still an understood or taught sense of what constitutes immoral behavior. The relativity of situations does not necessarily influence the feeling of tension that comes with knowingly committing what oneself considers wrongful actions. There is a difference between acceptable competition and disreputable behavior or cheating even though the forms of cheating change across cultures.)
Without sincerity, then, or openness with oneself, it may be impossible to recognize wisdom. From an emotionally confused state, one may not see wisdom or be able to communicate it. Wisdom arises from tranquility; tranquility is an easy state of mental openness and emotional clarity. This means that, besides emotional confusion, mental constriction obstructs wisdom. Mental constriction occurs when one wishes to censor reality, to deny what is real. While the nature of reality–the nature of an abstracted “reality”-concept, the abstracted conceptualization of an abstraction–may be debated, there are sturdy similarities about how the human body functions. These similarities allow a constructed social reality as well as multiple perspectives from which this social reality is viewed and experienced. Perhaps the most telling human attribute is the flexibility of perspectives through which we filter and shape our experience of this world. We may be best described by our phenomenal differences, adaptability, and persistence in individuality. Taken together, I call these attributes resilience.
Wisdom may not be recognizable if one is insincere. Being human, then, wisdom may not be recognizable and communicable if one is not aware of one’s individual and shared resilience. This particular perspective defines human nature by considering and enacting actual human possibilities. If one views oneself or humanity with mental openness, emotional clarity, and sincerity, wisdom is possible. Because of our creative ability, emotional complexity, and mental adaptability, it is also possible to be insincere. The effects that insincerity has on the individual and social bodies may be unwise even as they are produced by a multitude of fantastically intelligent means. It is easily within our ability to cripple ourselves, but there is a particularly human wisdom in the insistence on individuality and creativity which we exhibit.
To this point in history, nearly every less-than-global system of morality–and all are less-than-global–has insisted upon the immorality of the human drive towards individuality and creativity (phrased as selfishness). This condemnation has been expressed through various repressive measures largely because separate societies were not forced to consider global capabilities. (In this usage of “global”, I mean universally human and geographically global.) These particular moral systems expressed the truth that individuals must temper their impulses in order that the group thrive. This insistence and the rectitude of this insistence was the social encouragement that supported individuals’ development of wisdom. On a global scale, this same wisdom applies to individual societies.
At this point in history, we encounter a possibility not recognized in such rich detail before. Particularist moralities and interpretations look to judge outsiders’ expressions of humanity to be problematic to the extent that the outsiders infringe upon insiders’ expressions of humanity. This has pushed us to look for a reinterpretation of traditional moral systems, but it may be impossible to achieve an adequate global perspective without incorporating the wisdom of these particularist moralities which appear to separate us. What a wonderful situation!
In the same way that children resist the frustrations that direct them from impulsivity towards maturity, we have particularist leaders screaming for their own ideological interpretations over everyone else’s. They sound like children screaming for not being given as many cookies as they want. The children are right to insist on being fed; they are even right to push towards what they can appreciate; but the insistence that the world acquiesce to our childish desires is immature, unwise–it does not arise from tranquility nor produce wisdom. This ideological separatism and demandingness is childish, but it makes no sense to hate children or deny the possibility of wisdom within humanity just because children have a taste for cookies.
In the same way, leaders are right to call for what their peoples need, but there is a point beyond which their demands for more harm themselves as well as those around them. When our children are obese, impulsive, and suicidal, we all pay. So wisdom arises from tranquility, but it is also learned. Tranquility without learning may produce contentment, but it will not produce wisdom. Wisdom is learned from openness towards the world we live in and dialogue with other human beings who are different than we are yet similar in their potential for creativity and wisdom.
Having defined tranquility, openness, clarity, resilience, and wisdom, we return to hunger. What is spiritual hunger? Just as recognition of truth may be a similar feeling in every human body, spiritual hunger, what I will call spiritual hunger, may be the same. It is a feeling of lack, of emptiness. Just as mental hunger may be an indicator of need and also of openness, spiritual hunger may be an indicator of need–something not here, perhaps unsayable–and also an indication of openness. When we have mentally taken note of every actual, particular hunger we experience, if something is left, if some longing remains, I call that spiritual hunger.
When this hunger is shared, it is an expression of humility and dignity. It is the recognition that one person alone cannot perfect the world, and it is the individual affirmation that human beings seek. Beyond the physical and emotional needs, there may be a similar hunger and potential. We can speak in terms of self-actualization, pursuit of truth or happiness, compassion, wisdom, sustainability, righteousness, and whatever terms each individual brings. Each individual who contributes offers another manner of exploring this human potential. Phrased in this manner, it is obviously silly to demand that another human being accept what you have found fulfilling as answering their hunger. Truth is a feeling in the body. Whatever one offers another may be satisfying and it may not. Each individual knows their own hunger.
We recognize and practice wisdom together by sincerely exploring our learning and desires. When an individual offers their hunger, they inform the collective, they offer the truth. When the collective denies what is offered sincerely it is the same closemindedness as when an individual denies reality. It is an insistence on immaturity and blindness instead of wisdom and vision. When an individual meets the collective in tranquility, wisdom is possible, but when an individual only offers aggression, frustration of the aggressive desire is most likely as maturity is needed.
It is human nature to achieve wisdom and tranquility. The seed-forms are selfishness and desire.
The path to wisdom and tranquility is as diverse as the people walking it. We are at a time period when it is first possible for us to recognize human nature for what it is. This nature is recognized one person at a time. When people deny their longing for tranquility, they deny their humanity and cut themselves off from wisdom. This is internally the same as expressions of greed, violence, or any other form of exclusiveness. The spirit is awareness, not sloth; tranquility, not aggression; creativity, not selfishness; maturity, not impulsiveness. When we deny another’s hunger or our own, we deny the path to wisdom. When we ignore another’s tranquility or our own, we deny the path to wisdom. When we deny or ignore reality as it is, we deny the path to wisdom. When we cut off anyone from ourselves, we amputate the spirit, we cut ourselves off from fulfillment.
With this understanding, we can speak of our various hungers or desires without shame. We can listen without shame even if we can only offer tranquility or communion. From tranquility and communion shared wisdom can arise. With this understanding, we can look to leverage dissatisfaction in order to incorporate joy. With this goal in mind, sincere expressions of hunger change from complaining to invitation, envisioning, news reporting, and affirmation of personal, social, or “spiritual” values.
At the same time, we speak for ourselves and for humanity. Most of us, if not all of us, have room to grow if we are willing to face the truth.
I am hungry for deeper connection. We are capable. It’s all about planting trees.
Copyright 2007 Todd Mertz