What is Spirituality?
For many, the term spirituality refers to religious and supernatural beliefs. We may each practice our own personal form of spirituality as related to our beliefs. But, alongside that, there is also a shared spirituality open to all human beings.
The root of the word is the Latin, spiritus, which meant wind or breath - basically the 'essence' of something. Remnants of the original usage can still be found in English today such as in phrases like, "the spirit of the law", "the spirit of the Age", or "school spirit"; none of which have to do with ghostlike entities.
So the spiritual life is that which is concerned with the essence of life – or the essential things in life. A person with no sense of spirituality would be a person who lives on the surface, always dealing only with the shallow, petty, or mundane; perhaps even a materialistic person. But to have spirituality is to be concerned with the larger, deeper, and essential matters of life. It is about dealing with the essence of ourselves; expanding our consciousness or awareness and our deep responses to the world1.
Mythologist Joseph Campbell suggested that all spirituality is ultimately about a search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return2. For those with supernatural beliefs in an afterlife or deities, the essential things in life would revolve around supernatural entities or concepts. The prevalence of supernaturalists is why the word spirituality has become so closely associated with those ideas. But for the naturalist, spirituality is about coming to an understanding of our relationship to the cosmos and about reaching out for truths about ourselves and our world in order that we have a good life. This involves the age-old question: "what is the best way to live?" - or the examined life, as Socrates put it.
As with any spirituality, this is not merely an intellectual endeavor. A spiritual practice is a lifestyle that employs transformative learning, rituals, habits, and other activities which aid in altering perspectives, and internalizing essential wisdom. It is experiential - a way of being - and includes all of what it means to be human. For the Spiritual Naturalist, the purpose of spiritual practice is cultivation of mindfulness, reason, and compassion so as to allow for greater flourishing.
In many ways, our efforts in the organization I serve, the Spiritual Naturalist Society, are part of a quest. That quest is the rebirth of spirituality among naturalists3. When the SNS was first founded, there was little to no organized community centered on this. There was also little awareness of it popularly, save for some inspirational and eloquent observations about the natural universe from people like Carl Sagan and his intellectual heirs. Yet, very few examples of a systematized set of practices built upon naturalism exists; one that can help its practitioners achieve equanimity, wisdom, compassion, etc.
In the absence of spirituality, what has often risen to take its place among noble-minded atheists, Humanists, and freethinkers is politics. Politics, necessary for achieving good social ends that it may be, is a poor substitute for spirituality. Yet today the two are often so muddled that it's hard for people to understand the difference. Many churches and major religious organizations have taken a similar path.
In a search for meaning, many naturalists dive into politics as a source of fulfillment and purpose. At first glance, this seems like a wonderful idea and is certainly driven by pure intentions. The Humanist Manifesto III states, "Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals... Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness".
Yet, it is in the socially active political organizations that some of the most unhappy, heartbroken, or angry people can be found. The stress in many of these organizations is more akin to the front lines of a war than a bastion of personal fulfillment and well-being.
What often happens for many who are active in political and social issues, is a growing set of personal challenges. Over time, the seemingly insurmountable nature of many social ills becomes more apparent. Along the way, political opponents reveal themselves to be much more devious, inflexible, or unreachable than previously suspected. The very groups one works within, which at first seemed composed of brothers and sisters in arms, eventually reveal themselves to be a microcosm of the very problems the group set out to address. The infighting and internal politics can sometimes become as exasperating as the mission. Throughout these experiences hopelessness, hatred, and bitterness eventually arise. When this happens, action groups can sometimes fall apart, their members 'burn out', or worse - political or social action groups can lose their way and create more harm than good.
Nowhere in our lofty proclamations on the meaningfulness of political participation can be found what one is to do in the face of these struggles. How do we deal with failure? Why should we try? How do we fight evil without becoming evil? How do we simply get along with others productively? What do we do when hope runs out?
These kinds of things are near universal in such movements, and a human being cannot typically withstand such an onslaught indefinitely. Being smart will not help them; being a nice person will not help them; being well educated will not help them; and having the greatest intentions and commitment will not help them avoid these struggles. The answer is not achievable through brute force of strength, cunning, or confidence.
The reason these things happen is because we naturalists are putting the cart before the horse. To do good in the world over the long haul and still have flourishing and happiness, one must have a solid spiritual foundation. For this reason, we begin by placing the focus of spiritual practice on the individual practitioner - on one's personal development.
This is not because the practitioner views themselves as more important, but because they recognize that before telling others how they ought to be, we must work on the person in the mirror. We focus on self development because we recognize we ultimately cannot control anything more than we can control ourselves. We do this because we recognize that we must begin in all our social efforts leading by example. We recognize that, by fortifying ourselves spiritually, we become more capable of action for good in the world, and more capable of doing it for the long-term.
But in seeking a solid spiritual foundation, the pertinent thing to understand is what that entails, and what ways we often misunderstand spirituality.
Many people think of their spirituality, religion, or philosophy as being about beliefs. More centrally, about the things they want to declare to the world, opinions they want to express, and stances they want to defend. What comes next is a list of proclamations on various things, and this is supposed to be their spirituality.
The problem with this approach is that it is highly ego-based. It comes from a need to assert one's view of "how it is". Woven throughout this approach is a network of attachments, desires, and fears. Another problem is that having a list of opinions is not going to cultivate our character or move us toward happiness or remove our suffering. Yet enormous time and energy is spent in assertions and debates over conflicting metaphysical cosmologies, doing little real good for anyone.
Having a solid spiritual foundation entails highly specific philosophical instruction that leads to a re-framing of the world, our lives, and our value system. It includes a disciplined set of habits, practices, and rituals that are effective in deeply internalizing this framing over time. Thus, eventually, both our motivation for action, and our reflexive responses to events in the world are profoundly altered in such a way as to provide sustainable happiness.
Therefore, the focus of our spirituality is working on ourselves, and changing, deeply and profoundly, the way we see, think, and act.