SPIRITUALITY & BELIEF ARE WORN OUT WORDS
(Finding Truth is a Process of Deduction)
Belief is a stupid word. Willful ignorance is implied in the word belief. Spiritual information in the Information Age is largely spiritual materialism and false concepts propagated by those whom haven’t experienced what they’re propagating.
The word spirituality makes people uncomfortable for well-warranted reasons. It’s a bastardized, polarizing, well-worn-out word for an indescribable, unqualifiable phenomena. Religious and ideological beliefs have been scapegoats for humanity’s worst behavior, desire and discontent disguised as belief.
I call it a metaphysical exploration, one deeply rooted in the philosophy of “Knowing thy Self.” Though I know we’re all referring to the same thing, however we may be experiencing it, the problem is, most people don’t know that. We can pretend that religion is a totally separate thing from spirituality, but for most people it isn’t. All the stupid rituals, stupid beliefs, the patriarchy, and millennia of oppression and genocide are tied up with the word spirituality.
An atheist cannot deny his and her connection to all things, so she and he speak of “the universe” in lieu of “God.” I applaud this distinction. We all experience the universe here and now in space and time. Whether I’m a little piece of God experiencing the universe or I’m just a piece of matter experiencing the universe doesn’t really matter. The experience is all that matters. One piece of God experiencing another piece of God and one piece of the universe experiencing another piece of the universe is a semantical distinction. It’s all experienced through the universe, and nothing needs to be believed to be experienced. The journey is not the belief. The journey is the experience.
The scientific method and the scientific process may be used or abused, but like spirituality, science mustn’t be “believed.” When we say we “believe” in science, we mean we believe in the process of deduction, peer-reviewing and repeat-testing of hypotheses. Though science IS a perfect tool, it mustn’t be “believed.” Scientists have a long history of being willfully ignorant. For decades scientists refused to “believe” Africa to be the origin of humankind, based on the bunk science of racist scientists. Scientists propagated the “belief” that neanderthals were an inferior species until the science of genetics proved that present-day WHITE PEOPLE are partly neanderthal. Scientists are being swayed daily, currently, by capitalistic interests. No one funds metaphysical experimentation unless it’s profitable, and it rarely is. Who would fund a study which concluded, “To achieve limitless joy, bliss and fulfillment, one need only nuts and water and to sit meditatively in the woods”?
Science and spirituality are finally finding each other again in hallucinogenic drug trails. I have long been a supporter of MAPS and recommend supporting these studies even to those whom haven’t personally benefited from psychotropic substances. The results with sufferers of abuse, trauma, depression, bipolar, anxiety, OCD, and other debilitating illnesses have been largely positive, often life-altering with only one experience, one trip, necessary. It’s nothing short of a miracle, and these substances grow from the same Earth as we do. Hallucinogens have helped countless atheists to turn inward, to begin that journey. Sometimes all we need is a glimpse of that infinite thing, that thing which connects us all, that thing with 10,000 names, that thing some people call God and others call the universe.
Science and spirituality are tools laid out on the path to realization of time and space. The butt-end of a screwdriver may be used to nail boards together. The pry end of a hammer may be used to wind a flathead screw into the wall. Neither tool should be “believed in,” and have you considered there may be a better way to use those tools? Saying, “I believe in science” is just as willfully ignorant as saying, “I believe in God, Allah, Christ, etc.” One might presume science to be an external tool and spirituality to be an internal tool, but I’ve found both to be useful in my exploration of the physical and metaphysical. One always leads to the other, here and now in space and time. The experience and the experiencer cannot be separated.
Every self-help book is a book on spirituality in disguise. Every step towards “bettering” oneself is a step on the spiritual path. Spirituality has nothing to do with belief, and as I will repeatedly state within every phraseology at my beck and call, beliefs have severely debilitated humanity on our journey towards realization. And though self-help books may inspire us towards that which leads to realization, as far as I’m aware, every self-help book ever written was written by an unrealized being. Jesus didn’t write anything down. Neither did Socrates. Did it ever occur to anyone that this might’ve been on purpose? Perhaps Jesus realized something which cannot be written or read or believed or disbelieved. Perhaps what is real is really incalculable, really indiscernible, really Real -too real to be written -too real to be believed.
Perhaps the most “spiritually adept” among us are the ones who adapt easily and try new things often. Comfort, stability and security are not great momentum for evolution and lead towards inertia. Hard ideological stances propagated by the religious extremists and the dogmatic rationalists, the “science-believers,” lead to inertia. Even those who become stuck in their identities as “spiritual people” may become inert in their rituals and beliefs, a process to which Trungpa Rinpoche referred to as “spiritual materialism.” I’m reminded of the story of a monk who dedicated decades of his life to the pursuit of God, only to leave his religion and celibacy behind to get married, after which he began experiencing a kundalini awakening. Being fully dedicated to a belief system, a spiritual identity, a belief in one’s own correctness, can become a trap.
I have come to know philosophy as a mystical process, for one cannot know oneself by any other means. Though modern extrapolations of the Fathers of Western Thought would beg to differ and would argue discreetly unto oblivion the philosophic inclusion of such a word as “mysticism,” Socrates and Plato were undoubtedly mystics. Pantheism and metempsychosis are fancy philosopher words for an entirely conscious universe in which eternal souls reincarnate. Plato’s life’s work lines up perfectly beside the Vedic teachings, yogic teachings, and those of Gautama Buddha and Christ.
Those of us seeped in western thought (and debate) might be due to read up on Socrates’ “spirit guide,” his daimonion. Yes, the Father of Western Thought had a spiritual guide all throughout his life, one whom no one else saw nor experienced, to whom he deferred on all matters of experience.
Ancient Greeks were known to drink kykeon ceremonially, a hallucinogenic drink with similar properties to LSD. I’m reminded of Ram Dass’s story of giving his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, a huge dose of LSD after which his guru, who showed no sign of being intoxicated, recalled, “We yogis have known of this medicine for millennia.” The same yogi, Neem Karoli Baba, once told another disciple, Raghu Markus, to give a hit of acid or LSD, to Raghu’s father, an elderly retired military officer stuck in his rigidity, with much success. Raghu’s father was supposedly a changed man afterwards, becoming a devout spiritual seeker.
If one is searching for a bridge between religions, Ram Dass’s story is one of a New Yorker with a PhD in psychology from Stanford who became an outspoken advocate for hallucinogenic drugs, a Jew who converted to Buddhism only to travel to India to find a Hindu guru who incessantly spoke of Jesus Christ. The only major religion missing in this story is Islam. Trivia: Who is the most mentioned person in the Quran? Answer: Jesus Christ. He really does seem to appear in every major religion. I see Jesus as a bhakti yogi, one who professed the path of devotion. Perhaps devotion is the key component missing in much of modern-day Christianity. All I’ve experienced of the Christian religion in this life is judgement and condemnation based in rigid belief, an insidious toxin spread generation to generation, disguised as spirituality.
I actively hate religion. For every religion, there was one true spiritual seeker and a million imitators, and though we must love the imitators, we must hate the imitation itself if we ever expect a shred truth. We cannot become true spiritual seekers with all the baggage of belief. This doesn’t mean we have any right judging people for their beliefs, and we certainly mustn’t hate each other, but the beliefs are toxic, and what we refer to as spirituality isn’t spiritual. I know I’m not the only one who’s had this experience with the Christian church.
Despite her public persona as a peaceful, blissful escape from daily life, my experience of this illustrious thing we call spirituality has been a hellscape of turbulent, tumultuous and seemingly unending pain. I had never heard the word “kundalini,” and I certainly wouldn’t have “believed” in it, until one night I dreamed of a cobra lunging at my face, and the following day it hit my like 10,000 hits of acid. The initial intensity lasted 3 weeks, in which I didn’t sleep a wink and didn’t eat an ounce.
A year and a half later, I’m writing from a secluded cabin in which I’ve lost all contact with my former life, friends, occupation. Though there has been bliss and some inkling of peace in my hours-long daily sessions with this energy, most days my body feels as if it were run over by a train. Be careful, you callow, unprepared, so-called “spiritual people.” Ye know not: Playing toss with a plutonium bomb may lead to nuclear reaction.
I have yet to divulge much on the topic of kundalini, because I know not that which I experience other than the experience itself. I speculate this process is something like a “cleansing,” as the energy has moved ever-so-slowly upward. I’ve read much since the experience began, and I’ve come no closer to understanding. Just as scientists propagate bunk science and religions propagate bunk spirituality, the topic of spirituality itself is full of gibberish, copies of copies of copies of an ancient experience, “love and light,” rainbow-colored chakras, lies compounding lies, and a community of idiots pridefully boasting experience after outlandish experience as though it were an amusement park ride.
Perhaps it is a RIDE, one which certainly should be enjoyed. But the quest for truth is as deluded as Spotify. Since everyone can make music with built-in computer software and everyone can release it with the click of a mouse, my music remains hidden to those who seek it. As fiction became prevalent with the printing press, the Information Age has ushered in a new state of confusion, the Disinformation Age. As popular music has become a competition for whomever has the most money for promotion, so too is Truth. “Science” (paid for by Big Pharma) informs us on our own health and well-being? Advertisements tell us what we desire and who we want to be? Two political parties, one backed by “science” and the other, religion, and every pawn in the game blames the other. Twitter blames Facebook, Zuckerberg blames Fox, Fox blames MSNBC, MSNBC blames Russia, and who makes an attempt to change anything?
Somewhere to the left of it all, all that’s left of spirituality is a copy of a copy of a copy, a bastardized word synonymous with ignorance. Perhaps spirituality has always been a personal experience, one which can never be shared. Perhaps religion is what happens when we try to share it. Perhaps we should be careful how we share it. Or perhaps we shouldn’t try to share it.
There’s a good kind of confusion, one which assures us we’re progressing on the path, for if we’ve been here before, we must not be progressing. The good kind of confusion is saying outright, “I DO NOT KNOW.” Perhaps this is the only thing which can truly be shared. I know nothing.
Perhaps there are realized beings wondering around among us, and perhaps they really do know -really KNOW- what’s going on here. But for the rest of us, the spiritual process is an unknowable, indescribable phenomena, and perhaps all of humanity would be more spiritual if so-called “spiritual people” would stop blabbing about it. Perhaps we can only share what God isn’t, what spirituality isn’t, and just as we use scientific method, whatever we’re left with is likely to be what is real.
To use a religious term in place of a scientific term, and scientific and philosophic terms in place of spiritual ones, perhaps blasphemy is simply speaking on behalf of willful ignorance, and perhaps this metaphysical exploration of life is one of evolution. God, please bless the dogmatic rationalists with some of that “love and light” shit, and please bless the “spiritual people” with a bit more rationality. Believe it or not, beliefs are the only thing separating us.